Ascension
by Poe's Daughter
Summary: In order to fulfill his destiny as a Blood God, Reiko hunts for Shinnok's amulet. Believing Kenshi to be the key to finding it, he kidnaps both Takeda and Olivia, Sub-Zero's daughter, to use as leverage against the swordsman. But when Erron Black helps them escape, they suddenly find themselves on a chase throughout Outworld with danger lurking around every corner.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: Welcome to my newest story in the _Mortal Kombat_ fandom. To all my old friends and followers, it's nice to see you all again, and to my new readers, I hope you enjoy your stay! I'm sorry you haven't seen me for a bit; I've had family troubles. Yes, I'm still working on _Aftermath_ , and have an update in the works, but this plot bunny just started gnawing at my brain and wouldn't stop until I wrote out the first few chapters. **

**Anyway, _this_ story takes place roughly 19 years after the events of _The Curse of the Dragon Medallion_ , and roughly 5 years before the events of MKX. Without saying too much too soon, it follows the (mis)adventures of Kuai Liang and Anya's oldest daughter. It's slightly AU simply because when I first started writing my trilogy way back when, I obviously didn't anticipate MKX's storyline, and I instead followed the earlier MK games. Oops. Anyway, without further ado, here you go. It has begun! Enjoy, and if you'd like to review, I'd love to hear from you :) **

* * *

_Outworld, 19 Years Ago_

The water of the Sea of Blood stretched out before Reiko, gleaming from the hundreds of fires engulfing the war ships that ran aground centuries ago. Those eternal flames – testaments to the Emperor's military might – provided the only light for miles in all directions. The voice of the sea was seductive to his ears – never ceasing, always whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there were no people in sight, but a bird with a broken wing beat the air above, reeling, fluttering, and finally circling down to the water where it would soon die like him.

Earlier that evening, Reiko had found Shao Kahn's battle armor still mounted inside the armoire in his sleeping quarters. The General, in his grief, had put it on, leaving his own robes on the stone floor of his foster father's room. But now that he was standing beside the sea, absolutely alone and full of despair, he cast the unpleasant, prickling plate armor from his body. For the first time in his life, he stood naked in the open air, at the mercy of the elements, and the warm breeze that beat upon him, and the bloody waves that beckoned him to come. How strange and awful it seemed to stand naked under the sky! How invigorating! He felt like some newborn creature, opening his eyes in a familiar world that he'd never before been allowed to know.

The foamy wavelets curled up to Reiko's white feet and coiled like serpents around his ankles. He fearlessly walked out. The water, in spite of the heat in the Wastelands, was shockingly cold like a gust of wind from the Bīnglěng Di Dìyù, but still he trudged on. The touch of the sea was sensuous, enveloping his body in its soft, close embrace like the arms of a passionate lover. For a moment, he hesitated.

He remembered the night the Edenian armada had attacked the forces of Outworld, and how King Jerrod had raided his ship and thrown him overboard to drown, and he recalled the terror that seized him at the fear of being unable to regain the shore. He did not look back to it now as he did then, but instead he thought of the grassy meadow he had traversed when he was a young orphan boy, believing that it had no beginning and no end. Now, he was tired. He thought of Quan Chi and Shang Tsung, certain they'd murdered the Emperor and were now using all the resources and warriors in Shao Kahn's powerful arsenal to do gods knew what. But they should not have thought that they could possess _him_ , Reiko, High General of Outworld, the Emperor's adopted son, in body and soul.

Exhaustion pressed upon and overpowered him. _Goodbye – because I love you_. His mother's voice whispered hauntingly through his mind as she died. He did not know what she meant; he did not understand. He would never understand. Perhaps his adopted sister, Kitana, would have understood if he had seen her one last time – but it was too late; the shore was far behind Reiko and she was long gone anyway. He looked into the distance, his mind unable to wrap itself around the eternal vastness of the sea. The familiar terror flamed up for an instant but then sank again as quickly as it rose. Reiko heard Shao Kahn's voice, and then Kitana's. He heard the barking of a golden dog that frolicked in the field of his youth beside him. The heavy boots of the Emperor thudded as he walked across the dirt. The hum of bees. That deep voice commanding the other soldiers to teach the young boy how to fight.

Reiko began to move forward again, but abruptly stopped when he felt the sudden surge of life, a creature appearing nearby where there had been none. He raised a hand, and the weapon he'd casually laid aside with Shao Kahn's armor heaved itself into his waiting grip. The scythe was enormous, taller than its wielder. Its blade was a hideous thing, jagged and crafted like the wing of some great beast, longer than Reiko's outstretched arms fingertip-to-fingertip.

He squinted, peering into the dimness, and made a swift decision. As quickly as he could think it, his scythe flowed, fluid for less than the blink of an eye. He was now holding two weapons where there had only been one: two smaller crescents, thick and heavy. Blades that would be easier to swing and thrust through the violent gusts than the longer, broader scythe.

"I didn't know you could do that."

Reiko had never heard that voice, dusky and sneering, before. Frowning, he turned and began to trek back to the intruder who now stood idly upon the sand. He was, upon first glance, a monstrous entity. The skin from his nose and cheeks down had been carefully peeled away to reveal the skull beneath. A topknot the color of death's shadow peeked through his galea helm, and the wild strands fell to shoulders clad in angular plate armor and red and black robes. His entire aspect was lean and strong, and when Reiko stepped from the bloody water, it took him a moment to realize that, as tall as he himself was, he barely reached the stranger's chin.

"I am Reiko," he said simply. His voice was low, sonorous, devoid of pomp or vanity. "My scythe is bound to me by the Emperor's spell. Whatever tools I require, it can emulate. Now tell me why a soul from Chaosrealm is trespassing in Outworld."

"You recognize my people. I'm flattered."

"Don't be. Lord Koa'tal told me about your kind," he said. "My Emperor told me _more_ about you. Care to guess who I'm more likely to believe?"

The intruder sniggered softly. "Surely you know better than to listen to rumor and gossip, General Reiko."

"Depends on who's spreading the rumors." He clutched his twin scythes even tighter and cast a subtle, challenging glance at the intruder.

The visitor crossed his arms as if he hadn't seen the veiled threat. "I am a Cleric of Chaos. My name does not matter." He cast his gaze at the sea, his cloak rippling like a banner in the breeze. "Such a lovely place you've chosen to end your life. Very…you."

"I enjoy the view," he drily remarked.

"Heh. I've _heard_ you were a sarcastic bastard."

"What do you want, Cleric?"

Clearly, the man had no interest in answering Reiko's question, at least not yet. "Why do you wish to kill yourself, General? Because Shao Kahn is dead?" He scoffed at that. "Your loyalty to your Emperor is pathetic. Commendable, but pathetic."

"I need not the approval of an anarchist minion from the Realm of Chaos."

Again, that irritating little laugh. "I can see why the Emperor kept you as his pet all these long years."

Reiko's nostrils flared in barely controlled fury. He narrowed his eyes. "What do you _want_ , Cleric?" he repeated. "You're wasting my time."

"Indeed," he agreed. "I want you to die. You must first lose everything if you are to gain everything. Baptize yourself in blood and water, General." Unimpressed, Reiko stared at him somberly, refusing to dignify his statement with a response. So the intruder continued. "I know of the prophecy you heard in the temple the day you laid siege to the Kreeyan homelands. It is why you wish to die today. You feel as if the goddess failed you, and you would rather die than bend a knee to another tyrant."

For the first time in what felt like eons, both of Reiko's eyes threatened to pop from his face. He had never shared that prophecy with anyone; it had been his most jealously guarded secret, never once uttered aloud. "How could you possibly know that?" he hissed, prickling at how close to his heart this stranger had gotten.

The Cleric scowled. "You might devote _some_ effort toward not being offensive," he told him. "Considering that I'm offering to help you."

"You? Why?"

"Because if you succeed, I will have a powerful ally sitting on the throne of not just Outworld, but of all the Realms. I can stand at his side as he changes the very fabric of reality. And because, power and alliances aside, the legacy you seek for yourself is almost as fascinating to me as the greatest of this universe's creations."

Reiko had doubts and suspicions, of course; would have been a fool not to. And this Cleric would have been as great a fool not to _expect_ him to have doubts and suspicions. But in the end, his words intrigued him.

"Very well. I'm listening-"

"Give me your weapon," he ordered, interrupting him. "Whole, that is."

The General glanced at him uneasily, acutely aware of his nakedness and vulnerability. But then he clanged both scythes together, and the two individual weapons became one once more. He twisted it around and then, with a simple flourish of his wrists, placed it in the Cleric's outstretched hands.

Not particularly impressive in any way, it was just a plain scythe, clunky and thick. The Outworld smiths had been crafting sleeker weapons for centuries, if not longer. The intruder frowned. "I was expecting something more…" And then he shrugged. "Well, no matter. Your blood _will_ reign, General. But first, it must run."

At that, he swung the weapon into Reiko's middle. The General, suddenly struggling for air, collapsed to his knees as blood spurted over the fingers now pressed to the wound. Even with a skeleton mouth, the Cleric gave the impression of a sly grin. "I suppose I probably ought to have mentioned that first thing, shouldn't I?"

Reiko's fist was clenched around the haft of his scythe, which was now dripping with his blood; he didn't even remember summoning it back to him. Had the Cleric been nearer, it might well have been his throat in the weapon's place. He finally found his voice, and mustered a cry of pain. It pierced the air, shrill and painful, a sound as much spiritual as physical. And something both spiritual and physical answered his call.

If the surging power of life and the crushing weight of despair took a physical form, they would have been the same homicidal red as the mist that billowed out of nothing from the sand around his feet. A growing staccato resolved itself into the deafening sound of a heart beating. It flowed into Reiko steadily, healing the mortal wound the Cleric had inflicted upon him, feeding him raw energy, rejuvenating and strengthening his will to live.

"Better, yes?" the intruder asked.

"What…did you do to me?" Reiko gasped as he slowly rose to his feet.

"I gave you a taste of the power of Blood Magik," he explained. "Through it, you will ascend to godhood, General. But first, you must retrieve a particular artifact that is, unfortunately, currently well-guarded in Earthrealm."

"And what is this object I seek, Cleric?"

"Shinnok's amulet," he simply replied.


	2. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

**Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who faved or followed me and my story! I truly appreciate it! Also, thanks to everyone for their outpouring of support about my mom. So far, she's doing okay after her surgery to remove the cancer. Hopefully, she'll be home in time for Christmas! Anyway, your well-wishes and prayers and good vibes mean so much to me. :)**

 **I have decided that this time around, I'll answer everyone's review, but _after_ the chapter in order to be less distracting. So, without further ado, here's the moment many of you have been waiting for: your introduction to Livy! **

* * *

_Present Day - New York City_

"Okay, ladies, this is it," Cassie mumbled out the side of her mouth as they approached the front of the line. "Be cool."

Olivia, the daughter of Sub-Zero and a promising young Cryomancer, was far too nervous to laugh at the obvious joke. Her piercing blue eyes never left the large black man who stood like the Hulk at the front doors of the Phoenix, a trendy new nightclub in Manhattan. There was no way he'd believe she was twenty-two, or that Cassie and Jacqui were twenty-three, in spite of the lies printed all over their fake IDs. He was gonna take one look at them and know they were all still teenagers. At the very least, he was gonna take one look at Cassie and recognize immediately Johnny Cage's daughter. But to her surprise, when they finally reached him, he checked their IDs and said, "Okay, you three look hot. You can go in."

Cassie flirtatiously batted her eyes at him as he lifted the velvet rope to let them pass. "Thank you," she cooed affectionately at him. He cracked a faint smile, but nothing more.

Once inside, after Olivia had exhaled a noticeably loud sigh of relief, the three teenage girls began to giggle at their unbelievably good luck, but their voices were drowned out by loud, blaring dance music. Cassie, the Pied Piper of Manhattan, led them down a dim corridor that spilled into the main club, and there the girls were met by a dark room illuminated only by red lights and holograms of fire twisting towards the ceiling in double-helixes. A long bar glowing with soft red light stretched across the entire expanse of the black wall, an extensive collection of liquor on glass shelves behind it, and before it were tables and chairs for eating and drinking. Sofas and more tables occupied the spaces around the sprawling dance floor, and near the glowing glass tiles, elevated platforms that glowed like a roaring fire climbed towards the ceiling. One or two people danced on each.

"Does it have to be so loud?" Jacqui complained, holding her hands to her ears.

"Quit being a baby," Cassie snapped. "This place is the shit."

Jacqui looked to Olivia to back her up, but the Cryomancer merely shrugged, even though she secretly agreed with her. She felt her brain reverberating uncomfortably inside her skull, and was already wondering if this was a good idea. She heard her father's stern voice in her head, mentally berating her for coming here. If he knew where she was right now, he'd lose his shit and lecture her about not being responsible or mature enough to come to a place like this. But at the thought, she stubbornly set her jaw, determined to prove him wrong. It was bad enough he looked at her like a baby; she'd be damned before her friends did too.

"Come on, Jacqui!" Cassie beckoned. "I want to dance." She looked at Olivia and handed her a hundred dollar bill. "You go get us some drinks."

"Oh, gee, thanks," she said, but her friends were already moving towards the dance floor. "What do you want?" she called after them. They didn't answer, not hearing her over the deafening hip-hop music. Olivia rolled her eyes and then headed towards the bar.

As she walked, the Cryomancer couldn't help but feel self-conscious. All eyes were on her at the moment, and it was no wonder. Cassie had bought them brand-new dresses that verged on slutty – hers was red and had a short skirt and a low neckline to show off her boobs – and six inch heels to match. Her friend had also done her make-up and gave her what _she_ called "alluring cat eyes." Olivia definitely looked pretty, a far cry from her usual plain Lin Kuei training clothes, but she was having a hard time getting used to the sexy attire; it was difficult to walk in these shoes, and she was certain that any moment, one of her boobs was gonna pop out in front of everyone. She also felt mildly guilty. Her father would not approve of the way she looked right now. Neither would her mom, for that matter, and she was far more liberal about her dress code than he.

 _Yeah, but they're not here_ , she reminded herself. _And the whole point of getting away from the Temple for a weekend was to get away from_ them _and their stupid rules_.

Good point.

Olivia banished all thoughts of her parents, and headed towards the bar. There, she spotted a small group of guys checking her out at the opposite end of the counter. She dispassionately studied them for a moment but then shyly looked away, even as they were urging a decent-looking man to go talk to her. Even if she wasn't currently hooked up with Alex, however, she didn't want to talk to him. He seemed drunk and far too old for her.

"What'll it be, princess?" the bartender, a skinny redheaded woman with lots of tattoos, asked her.

"I-" she trailed off. She had no clue what to order. She'd only had alcohol once before, given to her by her Grammy Maggie, and that had made her sick. The woman, however, gazed at her expectantly. "I…don't really know what's good here," she said.

"Try the Long Island iced tea," the man from the group said as he sidled up to Olivia.

She smiled uncertainly at him and then looked at the woman. "Three of what he said," she told her, and handed her the money.

When the bartender had gone to fix the drinks, the blond man, who looked like he was in his thirties, said, "Has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Megan Fox? Not as bitchy, though."

Olivia scoffed, having no idea who he was talking about, though she suspected she was someone famous. "Can't say that I have," she replied, pretending to intently watch the bartender.

"My buddies and I all agree. You are the _hottest_ girl in this club tonight." At that, the young Cryomancer laughed. The guy recoiled and frowned. "What's so funny?" he demanded to know.

She shook her head and looked at him knowingly. "Nothing," she answered as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "You gotta love irony."

A bewildered expression crossed his face. But then he recovered. "My name is Scott," he said. "I'm in law school at NYU. See my friends over there?" He pointed to the men watching the scene unfold like a hawk.

"Yeah."

"They want me to ask you if you know CPR because you take our breath away."

Olivia rolled her eyes. "No," she answered coldly, suddenly annoyed, "but I know Kung Fu and Karate, so I could definitely rip your lungs out."

A wolfish smile spread across his face. "You're feisty," he said. "You want to go somewhere and do stuff with me? Things that we'd have to do…naked? I bet when you get hot, you get _fun_."

Olivia raised an eyebrow, her skin suddenly crawling. "No," she said, mentally scarred from imagining what he had in mind. "I have a boyfriend."

The man scoffed. "Well, where is he?" He looked around the club.

She thought of Alex back home at the Temple, who was probably on the night watch right this second, patrolling the parapet walkway near the roof like he did every night without fail. "Back at our home," she replied. "We live together. And he's _insanely_ jealous." That was a lie. Alex was as laid back as his father, Tomas, though quite a bit quieter.

"If he's so jealous, then why'd he let you come here alone?" Scott asked. "If you were _mine_ , I'd never let you out of my sight."

"I _didn't_ come alone," she hissed. "I came with my friends."

Scott grinned and rested his hand on her shoulder. "Well, in that case, what your boyfriend doesn't know won't kill him."

The young Cryomancer looked at his well-manicured fingers like they were a snake before she gazed coldly at him. "I _said_ no," she growled, suddenly angry, throwing his hand off.

At that point, the bartender brought back the drinks and Olivia's change. She left the man at the bar, seething from rejection, and waved her friends over to a small table in a dark corner far from him and his friends. But her anger – like the ice building on her clenched fists – refused to recede. He was a predator, she was certain, and a disgusting, creepy one at that. She was _not_ prey. His belief that she was infuriated her. And it was a point not lost on Jacqui and Cassie.

"What the hell is _your_ problem, Coldilocks?" Cassie asked her after she took a long drink of her tea.

"Some creep just hit on me," Olivia growled, and then she told them the whole story.

"You should've kicked him in the nuts," Jacqui said when she was finished.

"Yeah, that douche _looks_ like a real winner," Cassie added, glancing towards Scott's group. "All his friends do." She turned her head to look at the Cryomancer. "Do you want me to kick his ass for you? Because I'll do that. Consider it an early birthday present. We can mount NYU's head to my apartment wall, just in time for my annual Halloween party."

Olivia started to giggle but nearly snorted her swallow of liquor out of her nose. "Ow! Ow! Ow!" she cried as burning heat flooded her sinuses and her friends began to laugh. She reached for a napkin to wipe her face, laughing at the thought of Scott stuffed and mounted, with sticks for antlers jutting from his skull.

"Oh shit!" Cassie suddenly yelped, her laughter an abrupt memory.

"What?" Jacqui asked, immediately scanning the room.

Bleary eyed and lightheaded from the alcohol, Olivia did the same. And then they both spotted Detectives Kadeem Kabal and Kurtis Stryker sauntering into the Phoenix in casual clothes – the former still wore his respirator mask – escorting two reasonably attractive women in dresses not unlike the girls'. Both men were old friends of the girls' parents and would know immediately that none of them were legally allowed to be in a bar such as this.

"Oh shit!" Jacqui muttered under her breath as she lowered her head closer to her friends'. "We have to get out of here. If they see me and tell my dad-"

"Yeah, we're _all_ dead," Olivia hissed. "Thanks for stating the obvious."

"Would you both just calm down?" Cassie muttered. "They didn't see us. Look, they're heading towards the other side of the club. If we're careful, we can sneak around and not run into them."

"That is a _stupid_ idea, Cassie," the Cryomancer retorted. "How can we sneak around in a club? We need to leave."

"But I don't want to!" she argued. "We just got here. And I need to let loose. So do you two. I mean, come on." She looked at Jacqui. "You _really_ want to be stuck cleaning up cow patties and slopping the bacon-faces all the time, allowed to have no real friends but the chickens?" Then she looked at Olivia. "And do you _really_ want to do nothing but learn how to be a ninja all the time in an environment so uptight that you can't even tell your folks that you have a boyfriend?" When both girls muttered 'no,' she said, "Come on, guys. We're three hot women in the prime of our lives. We _need_ to live it up. And I, for one, don't want to be stopped by Starsky and Hutch over there." When Jacqui and Olivia looked at each other reluctantly, she said, "Look, when was the last time any of us has seen those guys?"

"Been awhile," Olivia said. "Three or four years, I think."

"Same here," Jacqui agreed.

"Same for me," Cassie said. "So what are the odds that they even recognize us? We don't look anything like we did a few years ago. Last time I saw Kabal and Stryker, I was wearing braces and dorky eyeglasses."

Nobody said anything for the longest time. Olivia woozily thought of what Cassie had said about her family and Alex. She _couldn't_ tell her parents about him because her dad would blow a gasket about it. She was far too young for things like that, and for even mentioning it, here's how many extra burpees and squat-thrusts she could do. She was a girl – _his_ little girl – and would be for the rest of his life. She had no business hanging out with her friends in the city for a weekend, let alone a _bar_ where there were strange drunk people grinding against each other on the dance floor. She certainly had no business having a boyfriend even though she was a few days shy of her eighteenth birthday, and _definitely_ not old enough to have sex with said boyfriend because sex could lead to all sorts of things, things like joy and pleasure and independence. No, it was best if she stayed cooped up in the Temple, doomed to be a little girl forever.

"All right, I'm in," Olivia conceded and took a swig of her drink. It immediately hit her head and she suddenly felt ridiculously heavy. "It _is_ my birthday weekend."

"I guess I'm in too," Jacqui said, though she was far more reluctant about her concession.

"Cool," Cassie grinned as she lifted her glass, prompting the others to raise theirs as well. "Here's to my two best friends."

* * *

Two hours and at least four Long Island iced teas later, the girls had managed to successfully avoid Kabal and Stryker, made some new friends on the dance floor, devoured a giant plate of diablo buffalo wings, and devoured another plate of loaded nachos. Olivia had long since abandoned her shoes – she found it was even harder to walk in them drunk than sober – but nobody around her seemed to notice or care. She felt relaxed and completely good, like she finally understood what freedom truly meant. Her father, mother, and even Alex were distant memories, and she danced with a few cute guys as Cassie and Jacqui cheered her on.

It was nearly 11:00 when Cassie directed Olivia to get them a round of tequila shots from the bar, and she gladly accepted the mission. As she stood there, waiting for the bartender to take her order, however, the creepazoid from earlier that evening approached her. This time, though, his friends accompanied him. Their eyes were all glazed and bloodshot, and they reeked of body odor.

"You never _did_ tell me your name earlier," he opened.

"It's Mini," she slurred as she glanced at his zipper. "I'm sure you can relate."

"I wonder how your _boyfriend_ would react knowing that his girlfriend is a drunk slut?" he shot back. He, like she, slurred his words.

"I'm not just a drunk slut," she said, "I'm also a whore. By the way, your mom says hi."

"I should beat the living shit out of you," he snarled, his face turning beet red. "But maybe I'll just make you suck my cock instead." Behind him, his friends nodded their heads and laughed.

But Olivia was too drunk to be offended. Their deathly serious expressions struck her as ridiculously funny, and she burst into hysterical giggles. She slammed her hand onto the bar and strained to breathe.

"You think that's funny, bitch?" one of the men said to her.

"Very," she wheezed. "If any of you touch me, I will make you kiss your own ass." Her laughter faded and she glared at them dangerously. "Or I can put you on ice. The choice is yours." For a moment, they looked at her as if she was crazy, and that prompted her to start laughing again. "Take a hike, losers," she managed to say before she started to walk away to find her friends.

But as she turned around, the head Neanderthal, Scott, reached up the back of her dress to grab her ass. "Don't you walk away from me, slut," he growled.

Though her reflexes were slower than normal, Olivia immediately whirled around and grabbed his crotch through his jeans, squeezing hard. He gasped in surprise and pain, but both reactions were short-lived because she pushed him so hard into the bar that it stunned him, giving her enough time to hoist him up and over it. Glasses crashed to floor, clinking as they broke into little shards on the tile. The bartenders behind the counter yelped. The crowd waiting for their drinks turned their attention to her. Someone, she dully realized, called for security.

By Olivia, Scott's friends rushed at her. One of them threw a frozen drink into her face, shocking her senses, sobering her quickly. She stood there, stunned for a moment, as the icy yellow concoction, something fruity by the taste of it, dribbled down her face and into her eyes, dripping onto her breasts, staining her dress. But then she recovered from her initial surprise and swung a tightly-clenched fist at his face. With a pained grunt, he stumbled backwards into a crowd of bystanders.

"Stop it!" the redheaded bartender shouted at them. "The police are on their way!"

But neither Olivia nor the drunken men heard her. One of the guys smashed his beer bottle on the counter, creating a jagged weapon to stab her with. Instantly, he thrust it at her, aiming for her chest. She blocked the attack, but as she shoved his hand away, it caught her arm and sliced it open like a scalpel. It was the Cryomancer's turn to cry out in pain as blood instantly dribbled from the thin, deep cut, but she wasted no time in twisting his arm into a joint lock and stealing the broken bottle from his grasp. Then she used it to bash another of Scott's friends on the head as he charged towards her.

While Olivia struggled not to let the one man, who was taller than her and outweighed her by at least fifty pounds, out of the joint lock, another man snuck up behind her and raked his hands deep in her hair. She squealed as she lost her grip, the pain rippling through her scalp almost unbearable, before her attacker threw her to the floor and jumped on her. He began punching her – in the face, in the chest, in the arms, in the stomach – and the remaining guys jumped in to kick her in the sides and the legs. Blood exploded from her mouth and nose. Every blow filled her vision with pain and blackened stars.

"Help me!" she managed to scream, though her jaw felt strangely swollen and disjointed. Ice began to creep into her hands, uncontrolled, and she gripped his wrists hard, ready to-

Suddenly, her attacker fell off her. From out of nowhere, Cassie had tackled him, knocking him off. Johnny Cage's daughter, a brawler at heart, kneed him in the face and promptly broke his nose. He wailed in agony as blood spurted from his nose, and he dropped to the floor, rolling back and forth on the wood. But she wasn't done. She marched to him and kicked him in the kidney before stomping on his stomach.

Unbeknownst to her, the last man standing charged at her vulnerable backside. Thankfully, Jacqui was there. As the man heaved his arm and fist at Cassie's head like a meaty club, Jacqui caught it, pulled it down, and used it to heave him over her shoulder. She planted him hard on his back, knocking the wind from his lungs. For good measure, she knelt down and punched him in the temple, instantly knocking him out. Then, as Cassie fought with the other man, Jacqui helped Olivia to her feet.

"NYPD! Freeze!" a familiar voice with a Brooklyn accent shouted. The two girls looked at the source and saw both Stryker and Kabal poised with their tasers aimed at the brawl. Both girls instantly threw their hands in the air and took a nervous step back. Cassie, finally satisfied that she'd beaten the man sufficiently, stood up slowly, wiped the blood from her face, and nodded at the pair.

"'Sup, Turner and Hooch?" she said to them.

* * *

"You know, kid," Kabal said to Olivia after the cops had arrived and escorted the girls into the club manager's office, and she had explained all that had transpired, "I'm a little surprised you didn't put that dick on ice. Didn't your daddy teach you how?"

The Cryomancer, who was still half-drunk but sobering up quickly, glared at him at she froze the deep cut on her arm to slow the bleeding. "He taught me never to use my powers to hurt someone unless I'm prepared to take a life. I wasn't, so I didn't." She cocked her head defiantly at him. "But I was about to. If Cassie and Jacqui hadn't come to help me, I _would_ have."

"You know," Detective Stryker said as he examined the girls' fake IDs, "what _I_ want to know is when the three of you saw us come into the club, why you didn't leave."

Now it was Cassie's turn to give attitude. "We didn't think the donut patrol would recognize us," she hissed before she flashed a cocky smirk at him.

Stryker chuckled. "Really," he said. It was a statement, not a question. "I personally went to your house more times than I can recall to break up your parents when they were fighting. To keep them both from going to jail. I saw you plenty of times, Cassie. Practically watched you grow up. And you thought I wouldn't recognize you?"

She shrugged. "Well, no," she said, though she wasn't half as certain as she had been a moment before.

"Oh, and by the way, kids," Kabal began, "I _did_ recognize you. When we first walked in. We're not as blind or as dumb as you think we are."

Jacqui's eyes bulged in surprise. "What? But, then…why didn't you say anything?"

"Because we figured as long as you three were behaving yourselves, we could look the other way," he rasped. "But you didn't, and now here we are." He looked at Olivia again. "How _is_ your pop gonna react when he hears what you did?"

"He's gonna be glad I defended myself after that jackass threatened to rape me," she lied. Her father was gonna kill her. Not figuratively. He was almost certainly going to kill her. Literally.

At that moment, a street cop in the traditional uniform poked his head into the tiny office. "We're ready to take them all down to the station, Detectives," he said.

"Including _us_?" Jacqui cried, her eyes welling full of tears and terror.

"That's not fair," Cassie snapped. "We were just defending ourselves!"

"These girls are just minors," Stryker sighed. "They've never been in trouble before, and we know their parents. Can you do me a favor and let us take care of them?"

The officer, a young man probably fresh out of the academy, looked at them hard, contemplating Stryker's request. "I don't want to get in trouble, sir," he said.

"I'll take the heat if anyone wants to say something," the Detective assured him.

"All right, it's your call, Boss," he shrugged before he exited and closed the door.

" _You're_ taking care of us?" Cassie scoffed. "Please. What are you gonna do? Write us a ticket for underage drinking? My dad will pay it off for all three of us."

Stryker and Kabal exchanged a glance. "Oh, no, no, no," the latter said. "We're gonna do something far worse than write you a ticket."

"Oh, really?" she challenged. "What?"

Stryker crossed his arms and leaned over. "I'm going to _call your mother_."

* * *

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, congrats on being my first review! As I believe I've told you in PM, I will kind of be departing from the comics a bit.**

 **ROCuevas, thank you, as always! I'm glad you approve :)**

 **Hell-On-Training-Wheels, well, what matters is that you're here now. Though, it _may_ help you understand more of what's going on if you catch up on the trilogy first LOL I'm glad you like my depiction of Havik and Reiko. I struggled to figure out how to write both, but especially Reiko. I think I've got it figured out now.**

 **en-lumine, ~hugs~ You make me laugh :) The plot bunny did indeed nip me hard. I really wanted Reiko's suicide scene to be both haunting and creepy at the same time, so it's good to see I achieved that. Kenshi will _definitely_ be coming up, just as soon as Reiko messes with Takeda. ;) **

**iceangelmkx, thank you! As our resident Havik expert, I'm counting on _you_ to help me out here LOL**

 **steveoblank, true, Reiko _is_ a bad guy but I want to make him a different kind of villain than I ordinarily write. **


	3. Wait Until Your Father Hears About This

Kuai Liang was nearly asleep when his wrist-comm chimed loudly from Anya's nightstand where he had distractedly set it earlier that evening. He struggled halfway up, leaning toward it, and then felt Anya's back block his arm as she reached ahead of him to grab it for him. He flopped back on his pillow, wondering dully who was bothering them at this time of night. He vaguely imagined it was Livy wanting to come home because she was bored with her friends, but then put all thoughts of _that_ aside. She'd been begging for an unsupervised break from the Temple for months now, and he'd finally caved since it was almost her 18th birthday. It wasn't that, and if it was, he'd be damn surprised.

The Grandmaster tried to pull the comforter up around his neck, but something heavy at the foot of his bed weighed it down. As he listened to his wife fit her Bluetooth device into her ear and then softly address Cyrax, he looked at his feet and saw a huge mound of heaving white fur sprawled across the entire edge of the king-sized bed. Annoyed, he shoved it with his foot and knocked it onto the floor. He was met with an indignant snort.

"Blue, is there ever going to be a night you don't wind up on my bed?" he demanded to know. The Seidan wolf shot him an irritated glance in return as he yanked up the covers around him and began to doze off once more. Vaguely, he heard his wife greet Sonya.

Then Anya's voice, sharp and angry – " _What?!_ " – drilled into his ear like an ice pick, and he opened his eyes again, now looking at her in alarm. On his wife's side of the bed, Blue looked up, her white ears twitching.

"What's going on?" Kuai Liang mouthed at Anya, frowning. By then, however, her face had twisted into a scarlet red scowl, and she didn't notice him.

"Yeah, Sonya, I understand," she said. "Yes…I…" She tiredly dropped her forehead into her palm. "Jesus Christ. I'm gonna kill…What on Earth were they…Are you _shitting_ me?...No, I know…Yeah, we'll be there soon. Yeah. Thanks. Bye."

"What's wrong?" he demanded to know when Anya had disconnected the call.

"Your daughter's dead," she growled, yanking off her nightgown and walking into their shared closet to find some clothes. "When I get my hands on her, I am _not_ kidding. I am going to kill her."

"Livy?" he asked, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes as he sat up on the edge of his bed.

"You mean 'Elizabeth Popovich' from Newark, New Jersey?"

He wrenched his face in confusion. "What?" he asked, now getting up to get dressed as well. He met his wife in their walk-in closet and sleepily pulled clothes from the hangers.

"She and Cassie and Jacqui decided to go to a nightclub in Manhattan using fake IDs," she explained, hastily throwing on a shirt.

Now Kuai Liang was fully awake and as angry as a hornet. "She did _what_?" he nearly shouted, a painful knife of betrayal twisting in his heart. She'd _promised_ him she'd behave herself if he let her go alone on this weekend excursion to New York, and even then he hadn't wanted to. It had been Anya who'd convinced him to let her go with her friends unchaperoned.

"That's not even the worst part," Anya continued, completely exasperated. "Some guys got fresh with them, so they started a fight. It turned into this huge brawl and they, along with a bunch of other people, got detained by the NYPD. Kabal and Stryker used their pull to sneak them out, and they turned them over to Sonya's custody, but she's currently detaining the three of them at the base. So we have to go get Olivia."

"Kabal and Stryker should have let her go to jail," Kuai Liang muttered furiously as he pulled a plain black t-shirt over his head. "If she's old enough to drink and go to bars, then she's old enough to get herself out of trouble on her own."

"What are we going to do with her?" his wife asked him in desperation, looking for her pair of shoes, either not hearing his suggestion or choosing to ignore it. "She has been such a pain in the ass lately."

"She needs a serious attitude adjustment," the Grandmaster said, wondering how to accomplish that. This crap never would have flown when _he_ was a teenager; An Zhi would have tanned his hide if he'd even _thought_ of pulling a stunt like this when he was Livy's age. "Come on," he fumed.

* * *

Roughly ten minutes later, Kuai Liang and Anya had walked through the portal adjoining the Lin Kuei Temple to Ft. Albany, Sonya's top-secret base, and quickly met up with Jax and his wife, Vera, who were already waiting for the battle-hardened General to meet them in the hangar near the portal-gate. The Briggs looked as furious as Kuai Liang felt inside, but unlike Vera, who maintained her calm demeanor in spite of everything, Jax was a veritable storm cloud of barely-controlled rage. The Cryomancer almost pitied Jacqui when _she_ got home to their farm in upstate New York. He suspected that kid would be scrubbing pig troughs and shoveling cow manure for weeks.

The Grandmaster stroked his beard thoughtfully as he waited – it was a recent addition to his face and he had barely gotten used to it – and he thought of all the ways he was going to make Livy pay when he got her home again. Anya was right; his oldest daughter had become decidedly rebellious in the last year, even worse than when she turned thirteen and was going through puberty. Back then, it was difficult to love her because it was like some psychotic, hormonal person with bipolar depression and multiple personalities had taken over his little girl, but then she'd cry, talk to him or Anya about whatever was troubling her, and she'd be better for a while until the next teenage drama came along. But now, it seemed as if something was always bothering her, and it was coming out in her increasingly defiant behavior. But instead of just talking about it, she'd clam up even more.

And that attitude…God, she'd developed such a sassy mouth. There were times he'd had to walk away from her because he'd just wanted to slap her. But the moment that she was born, he'd vowed he'd never get physical with his children the way his father had with him, so he'd storm off for a spell, seething his rage. He'd easily punished her smart mouth with strenuous physical exercise. But somehow, burpees or push-ups just weren't strong enough to exact vengeance on his unusually obnoxious teenage daughter tonight.

"Nice beard, Ice Man," Jax suddenly praised, eyeing the way the Cryomancer raked his fingers through coarse, brittle hair. "Looks good on ya." Kuai Liang began to tell his old friend thanks, but a new voice cut him off before he breathed the first syllable.

"I agree," Johnny Cage said as he sauntered up casually to the parents, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head. He was tan and healthy, but gray hairs winged his temples and he was starting to get noticeable wrinkles on his face. "You _almost_ look dignified."

Kuai Liang glowered at the actor but said nothing. For all his idiotic bravado, Johnny was a decent man who'd done his best to raise Cassie after Sonya divorced him and practically abandoned her daughter. Their separation had been ugly, and in the end, Kuai Liang thought Johnny came across looking like the more virtuous of the two, which had shocked him and Anya both. When he'd first met the man years ago, he'd seemed completely self-absorbed, as if the universe revolved around him. But for all his faults, his daughter always came first in his life, before his career and before his fame. And for that, he was to be commended.

At times, the Cryomancer downright pitied him; if Livy was a handful, Cassie was damn near impossible. She was a good kid with a big heart, but absolutely wild and undisciplined. Kuai Liang had no doubt in his mind that her outlandish behavior was a desperate attempt to get her mother's attention, even if that attention was usually negative. And unfortunately, Johnny was always the one left to pick up the pieces.

As the Grandmaster thought on his old comrade's predicament, he watched the actor while Anya and Vera both greeted him with half-hearted hugs. Then Johnny shook Jax's hand even though the retired Major frowned.

"So, it would seem we're getting the gang back together to handle some mischief and mayhem," the actor said, smiling. "Our kids are chips off the old block, eh? I, for one, am just so proud. Aren't you?"

Though his tone was sarcastic, Kuai Liang treated it like it was a serious question. "No," he said flatly. "I'm not. I'm mad as hell."

"I couldn't tell," he drily remarked as he wrinkled his nose. By then, Sonya had marched up to the group with her usual no-nonsense expression on her face. "'Sup, baby?" he asked, clearly knowing that would get under her skin. Kuai Liang exchanged a glance with Anya.

"Your daughter's fake ID," she replied, shoving the small, plastic driver's license into his hands. "I blame you for this, Cage," she snapped. Then she handed Jacqui's ID to Jax and Livy's to Kuai Liang. The Grandmaster studied it for a minute, mildly impressed with its high quality – it would've convinced _him_ and he knew the precise moment of her birth – but he was still disgusted regardless. He had taught Livy better than that. Or so he'd thought. With a furious sigh, he passed the fake driver's license to Anya.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting this framed," Johnny said, completely ignoring his ex-wife's accusation.

"Get serious, Johnny," Vera snapped at him, her dark brown eyes full of controlled fury. "I don't think this is funny."

"Neither do I," Kuai Liang added, now following Sonya through the base with the others on his heels. "How many crimes did they commit altogether tonight, General?"

"Four each," she coldly declared. "Possession of false identification, underage drinking, assault with a deadly weapon – a broken beer bottle in case you were wondering – and obstruction of justice. Stryker convinced the unis who showed up to release them to my custody since they're all first time offenders and they're all minors, but he was very clear: he won't do it again. And neither will I. Do you hear me, Cage?" she hissed, now glaring daggers at her ex.

"Loud and clear, General," he said, mock saluting her.

"I've been… _discussing_ this with them since they've arrived," she declared. "Putting some heat on them. Cassie said she knew a guy who could make their IDs, and she paid him five grand for the three of them."

"Where the _hell_ did a teenager get that much money to pay for something like that?" Jax demanded to know. He cast an accusatory glare at Johnny.

Johnny shrugged. "I've been putting money into a savings account for her since she was born," he said. "She's got a few mil in there."

"And you just let her have access to it whenever she wants?" he shot back.

"We've never had an issue with it before," he replied. "First thing Monday, though, I'm gonna change who has access to it and when." Sonya glanced at him and nodded her approval.

A few minutes later, Sonya escorted them into a large conference room where all three girls sat side-by-side in silence at a long table in big, cushy chairs. Two hulking MPs stood just inside the only door in the room, watching them like hawks, guarding them and probably intimidating them. Kuai Liang had to hand it to Sonya; when it came to sending a message, she didn't mess around.

All three of them looked a bit worse for the wear, but the Grandmaster wasn't as concerned with the other two girls as he was his own daughter. She wore a tight red dress – a painfully _snug_ dress at that – that was ripped at the neckline, revealing part of her black bra beneath. The ridiculously tall stilettos that matched her dress were set haphazardly on the table near her scraped elbow and clutch purse. A deep but clean gash clotted with dried blood cut through her arm, but it looked like Livy had frozen it to slow the bleeding. Her long, dark hair so like her mother's was matted, and one of her bloodshot, heavily made up eyes was black. She pressed an icepack she'd made with her powers to her split lip, and as she held her hand to her face, Kuai Liang saw that her knuckles were bruised and split from fighting. He took one long look at her and then shook his head in disgust.

Anya was the first parent to yell. "Olivia Leigh Sullivan-" she shouted, but Livy winced and held up her hand to interrupt her.

"Quieter, please," she said, grimacing in pain.

Her mother stiffened and leaned over the table. "Oh, I'm sorry," she whispered. "Does loud noise hurt right now? Do you have a headache?"

"Just a bit," she replied.

"Olivia Leigh Sullivan, what is wrong with you?" she shouted even louder than before, prompting all three girls to flinch.

"Mama, Daddy, I'm sorry," Jacqui said as she fearfully looked up at her parents.

"Girl, you better shut your mouth before I shut it for you!" Vera snapped. "What in the hell were you thinking going to some bar when you're not even old enough to vote!" Jacqui opened her mouth to answer, but when she did, her mother pointed at her and hissed, "I _told_ you to shut your mouth!"

"Look," Livy tiredly began, "we know you're all upset. But trust us, as angry as you all are, you are nowhere _near_ as mad as we are."

"Don't bet on it," Kuai Liang barked at her, and all three girls jumped. "You are _seventeen_ years old and had no business going to a club."

"Well, I'm about to turn eighteen, and we wanted to do something fun," she argued.

"You couldn't find something fun _and_ legal to do in New York City?" he challenged. "One of the biggest cities in the world, and you decide the only thing to do is go to a bar?"

"I'm really disappointed in you Cass," Johnny said as he shook his head and crossed his arms. "You know better than that."

The blond teenager shrugged. "Sorry, Dad," she said nonchalantly, though her blue eyes were sincere. "We were just looking to have a good time and things got out of hand. Everything was going fine until Captain Douche-Nozzle and his friends decided to attack Olivia."

Kuai Liang tensed and looked at his daughter. "What does she mean, you got attacked?" he demanded to know.

Livy shrugged. "He hit on me, I told him no. That didn't sit too well with him."

"Understatement," Cassie said to her.

"It's not a big deal," she hissed back, her tone urging her friend to shut up.

"Yeah, it _is_ ," she argued. "He threatened to rape you-"

"What?" Kuai Liang interrupted as ice involuntarily crept into his hands. The urge to find and kill the young man in question overwhelmed him.

"Are you okay?" Anya asked Livy. Her angry tone had suddenly softened into one of concern.

Livy, who had buried her face in her hands in mortification, nodded. "I'm fine."

"You should've cut his thing off," Jacqui muttered.

"I told you to shut your mouth!" Vera snapped.

"And none of this would have happened if you three weren't dressed like sluts and parading around in a club," Sonya growled.

"This isn't completely their fault," Johnny came to their defense. "They were probably just gonna party and drink like normal teenagers do. They weren't asking for some creeps to get fresh with them. No matter what they did before that, they didn't deserve _that_."

"Thanks, Dad," Cassie said.

He cleared his throat. "That said," he began, "you weren't supposed to be there in the first place. You told me you were going to the movies. So you're grounded from your phone for two weeks. Hand it over, kiddo." He held out his hand. Cassie scowled but fished it from her purse and handed it to him.

"You're grounding her from her phone?" Sonya growled. "That's it?"

"Well, I figure you've yelled at her enough for the both of us," he shrugged.

"I thought we taught you better than this," Jax said to Jacqui. "I guess I was wrong. So we're gonna have a long talk on the way back to the farm. And just so you know, little girl, you're grounded until you're 80."

"Yes, sir," Jacqui replied as she looked at her hands.

"Come on," he barked and his daughter obediently got to her feet.

"Goodbye, Cassie. Goodbye, Olivia," she quietly said, and her friends bid their farewells too. Then she followed her parents from the room, her head hanging like a whipped dog's.

"Get your stuff," Kuai Liang growled at Livy when they were gone. "It's time to go. You've inconvenienced General Blade more than enough for one night."

"But Dad, my stuff is still at Cassie's apartment," she protested.

"It can stay there," he replied, his face fiery with anger. "Mr. Cage can donate it to charity." Johnny looked at him in surprise, but then quickly nodded his assent.

"But Dad, that's not fair!" she cried.

"Not fair?" he retorted, the fury pulsating through him. He leaned over the table to within inches of her face. Ice crept from his fingers and frosted the glass tabletop white. "Not fair is _my_ teenage daughter begging and pleading me to let her come to New York alone, promising me that she'd stay out of trouble if I let her, a promise that she clearly had no intention of keeping. Not fair is finding out that my daughter lied to me and almost got seriously hurt in the process. So _get_ – _your_ – _things_."

Livy scowled at him, her blue eyes full of tears she refused to let fall. "Fine," she finally hissed.

"Excuse me?" he demanded to know, standing upright again.

"Yes, sir," she growled back as she gathered up her purse and shoes, rose from her chair, and stormed from the room.

* * *

Olivia stomped through the portal to the Temple angrily, and when she stepped over the threshold into the control room, she headed towards the dormitory that she shared with thirty other girls, including her younger sister, Sam. She couldn't believe her father, giving away her stuff like that without even batting an eyelash. The clothes she could live without. She hadn't taken her favorite stuff with her anyway. But it had taken her months of doing chores at her Grammy's house to earn up enough money for that iPod. She almost started to cry in frustration, but she wouldn't give her parents the satisfaction.

"Stop right there," her father's cold and resounding voice boomed as he and her mother emerged through the portal too.

Before her, Sifu Bomani, code-named Cyrax, who was evidently on the night watch, raised an eyebrow at the young Cryomancer. She scowled and then whirled around, clenching her fists, fighting off the ice that was gradually creeping into them of its own volition. "I'm going to bed," she told them. "Unless I decide to have a wild party with a bunch of strange guys. In which case, I'll take a detour." She looked pointedly at her mother.

"You better lose that tone of voice before I knock you into next week," Anya said, taking a dangerous step towards her, and Kuai Liang held her back. Olivia wasn't precisely afraid of her mom, even though the nurse had long since learned how to fight, but she _was_ intimidated by her dad. When he took a step towards her and glared at her with his piercing, icy eyes, she shrank a little and looked down almost apologetically. Though she'd never admit it, she thought she _may_ have pushed him a bit too far.

"Before you go to bed, Olivia, I have something to tell you," he began, his voice as cold as he was. The young Cryomancer looked up at him in shock, knowing immediately that she _had_ pushed him too far. The only time he ever called her Olivia was when he was this close to killing her. Otherwise, it was always Livy, for as long as she could recall.

Her dad continued: "After breakfast tomorrow, you will come meet with me in my office, and we are going to have a long and hard discussion about whether or not I think you're ready to undergo the Rite of Ascension and become an Elite."

A hard lump immediately sprang into Olivia's throat. She had been looking forward to her graduation test for months now. If she didn't test on her birthday, custom dictated that she would have to wait another year before she'd be allowed to test again. And she very much wanted to be an adult – or, at least, treated like one. Taking away her graduation was the very worst thing he could do to her; it was sentencing her to one more year of being called Livy and treated like a little girl.

"But Dad-" she protested, suddenly scared that he'd use that to punish her.

"Go to bed," he snapped, pointing to the hallway, and she knew that was the end of it. He wouldn't say another word, and arguing further was an exercise in futility as well as stupidity.

With her lower lip quivering, she swallowed that ball of pain in her throat. "Yes, sir," she said, fighting the urge to cry.

She headed to the dorm first, even though her true destination was up on the roof. Her parents were watching her like a hawk as they all walked through the main corridor. When she reached the appropriate door, she disappeared inside and made for the bunk bed she shared with Morgan, her BFF, and was surprised when she saw the blond Elite sitting on her mattress. She jumped, startled.

"Jesus, Morgan, you scared the hell out of me," she whispered as she threw her purse and shoes on the bed.

"What in the world happened to you?" the young Hydromancer asked in concern. "You look like you've been in a fight."

"That's because I was," she said as she opened the footlocker beside her bed and pulled out her coat and gloves. Then she slid on a pair of snow boots. "What are you doing up, anyway?"

"Your father and Tomas were talking so loudly in the hall that it woke me up," she explained. "I heard the Grandmaster say that you were in trouble and that he had to go get you, so he asked my father to keep an eye on things around here while he was gone."

"Yeah, it's a long story," Olivia told her as she slipped on her winter gear. "I'll tell you in the morning. But now, I'm-"

"Going to see my brother," she finished with a knowing grin. Morgan was the only other person in the Temple who knew about Olivia's relationship with Alex, and how every night, she snuck up to the roof to see him. "Don't get caught," she warned. "I suspect you're already in a lot of trouble."

"You're not wrong," she agreed. "See you," she said, and then quietly left the dorm.

At that time of night, the only ones awake were the Elites guarding the outer wall, so Olivia was able to sneak through the Temple without trouble. Still, just to be safe, she stuck to the shadows wherever possible, and walked on her tiptoes towards the spot where she knew Alex was always stationed. Once, she saw her Uncle Tomas heading towards her father's office, so she smashed herself in the shadows behind a statue, and he went by quietly, unaware of her presence. She waited a few minutes after he'd passed to go, just to err on the side of caution, but at last she felt safe to continue her ascent to the uppermost story where Alex walked the parapet.

It was bitter cold outside when she emerged, which ordinarily wouldn't have bothered her much except that she hadn't changed out of her dress, and the frost bit at her exposed legs. But she ignored it and made a beeline for Alex, whom she spotted immediately. He stood about six inches taller than she did, which she loved because he could wrap his arms around her and rest his chin on the top of her head, making her feel safe. But she loved his gentle, almond-shaped eyes more, and it was those eyes that immediately found her as she approached.

"What happened to you?" he quietly asked, touching her face in concern with his gloved fingers.

"I got in a fight," she said, already shivering from the cold.

"With Cassie?" he replied in surprise.

"Nah, with this guy," she said, and then proceeded to tell him everything. Alex stood there silently as she spoke, and even after she was finished, he said nothing. It annoyed her, so in exasperation, she said, "Well? Say something!"

"What do you want me to say?" he replied.

"I don't know," she grumbled as she hopped from foot to foot to warm up her legs. "That you're glad I'm okay, that you want to beat that jerk up, that my dad's an ass. I don't know, just _something_."

Alex shrugged and sighed. "I _am_ glad you're okay. More or less." He kissed the bruise on her cheek. "But I'm kind of mad at you."

Olivia recoiled. "What? Why?"

"Because you went to a place like that without _me_ ," he said.

"I didn't need you to protect me-"

"It's not just that," he interrupted. "You clearly got all dressed up tonight, and then you go to a place where all sorts of guys are looking to score."

She cocked her aching head and smirked. "You're jealous," she accused as she took a step back.

"Well, yeah, a little," he admitted.

"But I didn't _do_ anything," she said.

"That's not true," he protested. "You _just_ told me you were dancing with strange people."

Olivia frowned. "Oh," she said. Then she looked up at him in panic. "Oh, Alex, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. I was drunk, and-"

"I know," he said, holding his hand up to stop her. "But why would you want to go to a club and get drunk anyway? It doesn't seem like you had very much fun."

"We _did_ have fun," she said. "Kind of. At least, before the fight broke out."

"Well, you sure don't seem like you feel very good now," he said with a smirk set across his Asian features. "You look like you've been reincarnated as a dish rag."

"Yeah," she agreed, now turning and looking at the darkened landscape. She rested her hands on the wall, leaning forward. The moon was out and it illuminated the frozen terrain. Snow crystals glittered in the silvery light. It hurt to look at, setting her tender scalp on edge, and yet she couldn't look away. "I threw up a few times at the base. Long Island ice teas taste great going down. Coming up? Not so much. Now I've got a raging migraine."

"Well, that'll teach ya," he said. But then he rested his hand on hers. "Please don't ever do that again," he said. "Something really bad could've happened to you tonight. I've heard of guys like that putting drugs in girls' drinks and…" He frowned and cut himself off. "Just, please don't go someplace like that again. At least not without me."

"I promise," she said with a small smile. She looked up at his face to reassure him, and then she stood upright and wrapped her arms around him.

"Your dad's not an ass, by the way," he announced.

Now anger flared up inside of her and she pushed Alex away. "Yes, he is," she said.

He crossed his arms. "Really? _Really_?" he smirked. "You're honestly gonna tell me that he's wrong to be angry at you?"

"Yes, I am," she stubbornly replied, defiantly lifting her chin at him. "If he wasn't such an uptight jerk, I wouldn't feel the need to sneak off to bars and let loose with my friends."

"You know, you two _used_ to be close," he commented. "You didn't always think he was so uptight."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" she demanded to know. A gust of wind blew through the parapet and set her skin into thick gooseflesh. Her teeth began to chatter.

"It just seems like there's this rift between you two since you and I got together."

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Not _this_ conversation again," she sighed as she turned away again.

"Would you just admit it?" he said. "You're mad at him because you don't want to tell him about me."

"No, I _do_ want to tell him about you, and I can't," she protested, her cheeks flushing in anger. They felt unusually hot in the cold air. "Because he's an _uptight jerk_. And he treats me like a little baby."

"I really think you should tell him," Alex said. "You'll feel better if you do."

"No," she refused.

"Then I will."

"No!" she yelped in alarm, turning to him again. "He'll kill you. _Literally_ kill you."

Alex snorted in laughter. "No, he won't," he said. "He's like a second father to me. My dad is his best friend. And he's not a homicidal maniac even if that wasn't the case."

"Just, please," she begged. "He doesn't think I'm old enough to have a boyfriend. He doesn't think I'm old enough to have an _email_."

He rolled his eyes and smirked. "Alright," he agreed as he gathered her into his arms again. "But you're being silly. And you're shivering," he observed. "You need to get back inside before you freeze to death." He planted a kiss on her nose, and then on her lips. "Now get inside. We'll talk more tomorrow."

"Promise me you won't tell him anything," she said, looking up at him hopefully.

Alex sighed heavily. "Alright, I promise," he finally conceded. "But you really need to get inside."

"Okay," she agreed, breaking away. "I love you."

He smiled. "I love you too. Weirdo."

* * *

 **Dr. MKDemigod-Z Warrior, no it sure won't!**

 **Obelisk of Light, thank you, I'm glad you approve! I'm really trying hard to keep Olivia from being the usual teenager that you see in stories around here. Sorry about Jin; I'll keep thinking on it, but I'm not making any promises.**

 **ROCuevas, right?! LOL**


	4. Family Feud

**Author's Note: I just wanted to take a moment and wish all of my friends a very Merry Christmas, and if I don't get a chance to update again beforehand, Happy New Year's as well :D**

* * *

The following morning, the Grandmaster was noticeably absent from breakfast when Olivia sat down at her usual table with Morgan, Alex, Bay, and Gat, her small circle of friends. As the kids on kitchen duty served the others oatmeal and fresh fruit, the young Cryomancer kept looking at her father's spot at the head of the room at the table where the teachers sat, waiting for him to show up. He was never late to anything; punctuality was his M.O. But he never came. Her _mother_ was there, and once, she caught her daughter staring hopefully. The only time her dad ever missed a meal was when he was sick or too upset to be around people. So if he came to breakfast like normal, then perhaps he'd forgiven her and wouldn't take away her Rite of Ascension. But the nurse sadly frowned at her and silently shook her head no. Like a whipped dog, Olivia hung her head.

"Are you gonna eat that?" Bay asked as he pointed to her orange. Before she even had a chance to respond, the Hydromancer Elite reached across the table and snatched it from her.

"No, really, I don't mind," Olivia said crossly, even though she felt too sick to her stomach to even _look_ at the food sitting on the table before her.

Bay was _technically_ her uncle. After her grandfather, Halsey, was automated by the old Lin Kuei, the Black Dragon used his semen to artificially inseminate a Tibetan prisoner, the same as Alex and Gat and several of the other Elites now serving. But he was only two years older than her and had a sense of humor just like her Uncle Tomas', so they became good friends growing up. And every morning, he stole food from her just to make her laugh. That morning, however, she was _not_ in the mood.

"Geez, who peed in _your_ Cheerios?" he asked, peeling the orange.

"Shut up," she snapped, rubbing her aching head. Her blood pounded hard like a hammer through the veins and arteries running over her skull.

"She had a rough night," Morgan explained as she rubbed her best friend and cousin's shoulder. And then she filled the group in on everything that had happened.

"You're so lucky!" Gat, Cyrax's son, said when she was finished. "What was it like?" he asked eagerly.

"Loud," Olivia said, burying her face in her arms on the tabletop. "Very, very loud."

"I didn't mean the club, I meant the fight," he said, leaning over the table to get closer to her. "All we've done is practice. What was it like to fight for real? What kind of physics were involved? Did everything go like the Masters told us it was supposed to?"

"Switch off," Alex told him, pushing him back with a frown. "This isn't science class."

Olivia, meanwhile, looked at Gat with an astonished yet disgusted expression on her face. "Look at me," she hissed as she pointed to her black eye. It was swollen completely shut. "Does it _look_ like I had fun? Does it _look_ like I had time to take notes about it?"

Gat shrugged. "It _looks_ as if everyone is staring at you," he said as he took a bite of his oatmeal.

"Let them," Morgan said, defiantly thrusting out her chin at him. "My dad would say it's a badge of honor."

"Dad wouldn't say that," Alex scoffed as he stared at her. "He'd make a joke-"

"Not that dad," she interrupted. "My other dad. Fujin." As she spoke his name, she proudly smiled and gripped a gold pendant that hung from a thin chain around her neck. It was small and round, with a rolling wave of lines sweeping across it to symbolize the wind. "He would say it's a badge of honor because Olivia defended herself against that pig."

"You think he'd let me stay with him at the Temple of the Elements for a while when my dad kicks me out?" Olivia sarcastically groaned, though there was the slightest hint of sincerity in her question.

Morgan smiled sympathetically and started to answer when suddenly, Tommy and Dominic, Olivia's younger twin brothers, along with Sam, her baby sister, flopped down at the table beside Gat and Bay. All three were Hydromancers like their mother, with Tommy and Dom born to the Warrior Class while Sam was a Healer like Anya. And all three got on Olivia's last nerve; she had absolutely nothing in common with any of them and tried to avoid them as much as possible.

"So, there's a _lot_ to talk about in the Temple today," Tommy opened, crossing his arms. His lavender eyes glittered in amusement. "Word on the street is that Dad is going to send you away like he did to Aunt Miyuki."

"Go to hell, you little jackass," Olivia snarled, feeling ice creep into her hands at the mention of her crazy aunt. "This is completely different."

"Yeah," Alex agreed with her. "My dad said she was psychotic and evil and tried to kill your mom. Several times. The Grandmaster had no choice." He glared pointedly at the Hydromancer.

"What happened, sis?" Dom now asked, though his tone was more of concern than Tommy's. "Spill it. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she snapped. "I'd be even better if people would just stop talking about it."

"I hope you at least kicked some serious butt before you got _that_ ," her other brother joked about her black eye.

"Why don't you let Mom heal you?" Sam asked. "You look like you don't feel very good. Or I can do it if you want."

"I'm _fine_!" Olivia yelped for what felt like the millionth time in a day. Then she jumped to her feet and stormed off.

"Olivia-" Alex called, but she ignored him and kept walking, quickly leaving the mess hall and all the eyes staring at her. Her footsteps on the stone floor echoed far too loudly in her ears, drowning out the sound of her own voice berating herself for screwing up so badly, and the sound of her friends constantly asking if she was okay, and her parents yelling at her, and her father not coming to breakfast…Too bad the dull thud of her footsteps couldn't mask the overwhelming thorn of pain that pierced her heart.

"Hey," she heard Morgan call a moment later. "Olivia, stop!"

Finally, the Cryomancer obeyed. She stopped by the Grand Window, a two story tall pane which, during the spring and summer, revealed a magnificent view of the rolling hills of Arctika. Right now, though, it was pitch black outside with no moon to illuminate the snow, even though it was a little after seven. Her lips were quivering and tears prickled at her eyes as she turned around, and she knew if she said a single word, there would be nothing she could do to stop them from overflowing. So she remained silent as she watched her best friend catch up to her.

"Where are you going?" the Hydromancer demi-goddess asked as she raised her eyebrow.

Olivia shook her head. "My dad is such a jerk," she whimpered as her voice collapsed and she sank into her friend's arms. "None of this would've happened if it weren't for him," she sobbed.

"He is _not_ the easiest guy to talk to," Morgan agreed, nodding her head yes on the Cryomancer's shoulder. "And if _I_ think that, then I can only imagine how _you_ feel."

"You're lucky that you have such a cool dad," she sniffed. " _Two_ of them." She pulled away and looked her in the eye. " _My_ dad keeps me locked up in this Temple, and I'm never allowed to have fun or do anything but what he tells me to do."

"Hey, _my_ dads may be fun," Morgan began, crossing her arms, "but I have entirely different problems with them. Tomas has a Peter Pan complex. Like, somewhere along the way, I became more mature than him. So I don't tell him a lot of stuff because he'd probably just make a joke about it." She sighed. " _Fujin_ , on the other hand, knows everything about me because I can't lie to him. He'd just look into my soul and see if I was telling the truth or not. Nothing is sacred. But he's not around much."

"Fathers suck," Olivia grumbled, wiping the tears from her face. She cringed as she dried her bruised eye. It was very tender and sore.

"Sometimes," she agreed. "If we were a different sort of young people, we might just feel obligated to do something about it." Morgan half-smiled and wrapped her arm around Olivia as the two started walking towards the Grandmaster's office.

They walked in silence for a few minutes. "Yeah, well now I have to go talk to mine," Olivia eventually complained. "And I don't _want_ to talk to him. He's just gonna tell me how much I suck before he takes away my Rite of Ascension."

"It's not like he gave you a choice," Morgan scoffed. "You can't _not_ show up."

"What makes you think I don't want you to kill me?" she grumbled.

"I would, but I like bothering you," she said. Then suddenly, she straightened and looked at her friend. "Hey, I know how you can get him to lay off."

Olivia raised her eyebrow. "How?"

"Just cry," she suggested. "It always works for me. Tomas backs down in a hurry when I play that card." She laughed, which made the Cryomancer smile. "Men don't seem to know how to handle it. Crying scares them. I bet you could use it on Alex too."

"Thanks," she said, "but I don't think that'll work on my dad."

"Why not?"

"Because, in order to do that, he'd have to have a soul and feelings, and he has none of those things. Except anger. Lots and lots of anger."

"It's worth a try," she shrugged as they reached the Grandmaster's office. Then Morgan hugged Olivia. "Good luck, sweetie," she said.

"Thanks," she replied as she watched her best friend walk back towards their dorm.

Olivia now nervously wrung her aching hands as she worked up the courage to knock on her father's office door. He was _mad_ at her like she'd never seen him before, and she was afraid of what he'd say or do. He just couldn't take away her Rite of Ascension. He just couldn't! That familiar ball of pain welled up in her throat, and she struggled to swallow it while she debated for several long minutes on whether or not to knock.

"You're going to have to face him eventually," a masculine voice soon said behind her, his words laced with a Czech accent. Olivia jumped, startled from her thoughts, and then looked at her Uncle Tomas with her one good eye. He stood behind her with his arms sternly crossed and all traces of his normal mirth gone from his face. "If it was me, I'd want to get it over with sooner rather than later."

Olivia nodded. "I'm just…I don't…I-" she stammered, unable to find the words she wanted.

"Very eloquent," he chided her. "Your sassy comebacks never fail to impress me." He scoffed and then squeezed by her, knocking on the door for her. The loud noise was like a death knell, and she looked at her feet as she waited for her father to answer it.

"Uncle Tomas?" she asked meekly, hating that she'd made him angry with her too. He was usually the first one to defend her when she screwed up. "My dad said he might take away my Rite of Ascension."

The cyber-ninja's expression suddenly softened to one of near pity. He sighed. "You know, Olivia, when I was a child, I was punished in ways I'm _glad_ you can't imagine. But as ornery as I behaved, my elders never threatened to take my Rite of Ascension away." He looked at her wistfully and then patted her undamaged cheek. "You should probably think about getting your act together," he knowingly added as he smiled sadly at her.

Olivia nodded, and in a few seconds, she heard her father's heavy boots stomp towards the other side of the door. He flung it open and immediately looked from Tomas to her to Tomas again. His daughter, meanwhile, looked at her feet, afraid to step one more toe out of line lest she lose her Rite of Ascension on the spot. Even though she couldn't see it, she felt his scowl burning twin holes through her skull.

"She's been standing out here for the last fifteen minutes," the cyber-ninja reported, his voice almost smiling in amusement. "She seemed to be having trouble remembering how to knock. So, I helped. You're welcome." And with that, he walked off.

Olivia's father looked down on her, his gaze ominous and piercing. She didn't even have to look him in the eyes to know that they were colder than Arctika during a blizzard. "Come in," he growled, opening the door wider to allow her to step inside his office and personal library. When she was inside, he closed the door behind her and motioned for her to sit in the short-backed padded leather chair that stood before his giant mahogany desk. Nervously, she walked towards it, vaguely thinking about how many times he and she had done this dance in the last year. She was constantly in his office, being reprimanded, but those times, she'd never felt scared. Today, however, she felt as if she were walking to the electric chair.

"We missed you at breakfast," she softly opened, hoping to ferret out her punishment as quickly as possible.

The Grandmaster merely grunted as he sat in his own chair behind his desk and looked at her pointedly. "I wasn't hungry," he growled. "I was too busy thinking of what I should do to you."

"Please don't take my Rite of Ascension away!" she blurted out, fighting hard not to cry again. "I'll do anything you want, just _please_ don't take it from me."

"I haven't decided whether or not I should," he coldly replied as he leaned forward and folded his fingers into a triangle on his desk. "I had hoped this conversation could help me make my decision." He sighed and looked at her with his piercing blue eyes, the same ones she had. "Do you know what you did to your mother and me?" he growled. "Your mother has been crying most of the night. And I don't even want to _think_ about what could've happened to you…" He trailed off, and his voice threatened to break as he glanced at a picture frame on his desk. The photo was one of him and her when she was a toddler, she knew. "What on earth possessed you to do something so stupid?" he demanded to know.

Olivia nervously wrung her hands again and then looked to the floor, but had trouble finding her words. She hadn't meant to make her mother cry. That was a new low for her.

"The answer isn't on the floor," the Grandmaster said. "So you need to look at me. _Now_."

She gulped and looked at him. "Jacqui and I didn't want to," she quickly said. "It was Cassie's idea-"

"Cut the bull," he snapped. "You've got a mind of your own and you've marched to the beat of your own drum your whole life, regardless of what anyone thought. So I'm not going to let you sit there and pass the blame off on Cassie." He scowled. "I wholeheartedly believe she was the ringleader in this nonsense, but you should've had the courage to say no."

"I went along with it because I didn't want to look like a baby," she said.

"Who cares what you look like?"

"I do!" she yelled, suddenly angry. "You always treat me that way. I couldn't stand it if they did too."

"I don't care what your reasons are-"

"What are you talking about?" she hissed. "You _just_ told me to tell you why I went to that club with them. _That's_ my reason." Furiously, she crossed her arms and turned her face towards the wall of books, scowling.

"Livy, you're almost eighteen," he said with equal venom. "The Rite of Ascension is designed to prove how much you've learned in your training. Not just your skill as a martial artist, but as a person. And so far, I'm not impressed with you."

She scoffed. "Of course not."

"And do you really think I believe this whole thing is about you feeling like I treat you like a baby?" he snarled. "I'm not stupid. I know there's something else going on. So why don't you come clean now? What are you hiding?"

She glared at him. "I'm not hiding anything," she lied. She thought of Alex again and her relationship with him. They'd been together for a year now, and a few months prior, they took each other's virginity, and had been intimate several times since. If Olivia's parents knew about the complete and utter depth of their relationship, Alex would be dead meat in spite of his adamancy that the Grandmaster looked at him like a son. She _couldn't_ tell her father the truth.

"Then why won't you let your mother heal you?" he shot back, not convinced. "Why haven't you let her or your Aunt Kailyn or any of the Hydromancers touch you for the last year?"

"Because I have a space bubble," she sassed.

"Or because you know they'll see what's _really_ bothering you and tell me."

Olivia shrugged. "Whatever," she grumbled.

"This attitude is precisely why I don't think you're ready to test," he sighed.

"Yes, I _am_ ," she argued. "No one in my age group works harder than me."

"When you show up," he countered. "But you've been skipping your classes a lot lately. Why is that?"

"I am the _best_ in my age group," she growled, ignoring his question, her voice dropping a couple of octaves.

"That's not true," he said. "You cut class, you lie to me and your mom constantly, you get into fights with your classmates, and now you nearly get arrested sneaking into a bar. By my count, that makes you the _worst_ in your age group."

Tears filled Olivia's eyes. It was like he'd just slapped her in the face. "God, you never listen!" she exploded as the tears burst from her eyes.

"I could say the same for you," he hissed. "And since I am older and more experienced than you, perhaps _you_ should be the one who listens."

"What should I listen to?" she challenged, furious. "You always telling me I suck?"

"That's not going to work on me," he retorted. "I'm not easily manipulated."

"God, I can't ever talk to you!" she shouted through angry sobs. "This is all your fault!"

" _My_ fault?" he indignantly said. "I didn't _make_ you go to New York. You're the one who begged me. And I certainly didn't _make_ you go to a club that you're not allowed to go into until you're twenty-one."

She glared at him. "Maybe so, but if I could ever just talk to you, none of this would've happened. Maybe I wouldn't have been so desperate to get out of this prison and away from _you_!"

Once more, the Grandmaster looked bewildered. "Livy," he began, his tone softer, "I know I'm not the perfect parent, but if you ever want to talk to me, you know you always can."

She angrily wiped her eyes. "No, I can't," she argued.

"And why not?"

"Because you're not the most approachable person in the world," she snapped as she pulled her knees on the chair and to her chest. "You always treat me like a baby and then get mad over every little thing I say. I don't trust you at all. I don't even _like_ you. So why on earth would I want to _talk_ to you?"

For the first time during their conversation, it was _his_ turn to look wounded. "I see," he quietly said as pain filled his blue eyes. He cleared his throat. "Livy, if that's how you feel, then we need to work on that."

"How can we?" she demanded to know. "A leopard can never change its spots. At least, that's what Sifu Bomani says all the time."

He tensed. "You don't even know me," he hissed.

"That's right!" she yelled, even though the noise split her brain in two. "Because you never talk to me like an adult. Only like a little baby that always needs to be protected."

"We're getting off track here," he growled. "No matter what you're feeling, that didn't justify you breaking the law and getting into a fight."

She bitterly chuckled beneath her breath. "Have you ever stopped to think that I did all that just because I knew it would make you mad?" She shook her head. "You are ready to spit nails about it, and not because I scared you or you're worried about me, but because for once, I did something that _you_ couldn't control."

"So you did all this just to thumb your nose at me?" he repeated. "Do you know how stupid you sound right now? And was it worth it? Getting in a fight, nearly getting assaulted. Was all that worth sticking it to me?"

"Yes," she growled.

"Livy-"

" _Stop calling me Livy_!" she erupted. "I am _not_ a baby!"

Immediately, more hurt and confusion filled her father's eyes. "I've always called you that," he argued, puzzled. "Ever since you were born."

"And it's stupid and babyish," she snapped. "I hate it. Just like I hate _you_."

"Liv…I mean, _Olivia_ ," he began. "I-"

"Look, can I go now?" she interrupted in her most hateful tone. "I already know you're gonna take my Rite of Ascension away. So we have nothing more to discuss."

The Grandmaster sighed and nodded his head yes. "Go help your mother in the infirmary today," he said.

Olivia said nothing more as she got to her feet and left his office as fast as she could without running. The ball of pain swelled uncomfortably through her throat and prickled at her eyes, threatening to spill over. By the time she reached the door, she was shuddering from fighting the tears. When she closed the door behind her, she lost all control and began bawling.

* * *

"You know she's out there, crying in the hallway, don't you?" Tomas asked as he materialized in the chair Livy had just vacated.

"I suspected," Kuai Liang replied as he rubbed his temples. His head hurt.

"Please tell me you're not really going to take her Rite of Ascension away," he said. "Please tell me that's just a bluff to get her to shape up and fly right."

"I have to do _something_ , Tomas," he yelped. "She doesn't care about anything else."

"Yeah, but come on," he said, frowning. "I was way worse than she is, and Bi-han was worse than me. You remember what he did before he tested? Mr. 'I ask permission of _nobody_.' If Oniro let us test and he _hated_ us, why wouldn't you let Olivia test?"

"I just don't think she's ready."

The Enenra scoffed. "Of course she is," he defended. "She's not wrong about being the best student in her age group."

"She cuts class all the time-"

"She cuts class because she's _bored_ with it, my _pr̆ítel_. It's not challenging enough anymore."

"Then maybe I need to make class harder on her," he muttered.

"Maybe," he shrugged. "She _is_ your daughter."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Tomas grinned. "She's determined to get things right, no matter how many times she messes up. You mean to tell me that doesn't sound like someone we both know?" He looked at Kuai Liang pointedly. "Make it harder on her so that she has plenty of opportunity to mess up."

"She catches on much more quickly than I ever did," he pointed out.

"Well, she gets her brains from her mother," he joked.

"Har har," the Cryomancer jeered. "She gets her _stubbornness_ from her mother," he corrected.

Tomas burst into laughter. "Oh, who are you trying to fool?" he asked with a smile. "You and I _both_ know better."

"What am I going to do with her?" he sadly sighed. "I don't really treat her like a baby, do I?"

The cyber-ninja shrugged. "Kind of," he admitted.

Kuai Liang looked at him in wide-eyed surprise. "What?"

"Look, my _pr̆ítel_ , don't take this the wrong way," he said, throwing his hands up deferentially, "but you're a little too overprotective of all of your children, not just her. The other three just haven't figured it out yet."

"I care about them, Tomas," he indignantly replied.

"Well, of course you do," he said. "But I just think that sometimes, caring means letting them spread their wings to fly."

Kuai Liang pondered the wisdom of that for a long moment, but his mind couldn't let go of the things Livy had said to him. She didn't trust him, didn't like him, and in fact, _hated_ him. The news astonished him. Because she was the only Cryomancer amongst his children, he'd always thought he'd shared a special bond with her. When she'd first discovered her powers years ago, and she was scared of them, terrified she'd accidentally freeze someone to death, it was he who'd calmed her and taught her how to control them. As she grew up and her powers over ice and snow became stronger, they would talk for hours about it and imagine all the things they both could do. They used to spend hours outside practicing in the snow, building igloos and forts for the kids to play in, making snowmen and sledding down hills on sleds they formed out of ice. It was a relationship no other member in the Temple could boast about having. He'd taken it for granted that she'd always feel that way too. The revelation that she felt anything but love for him stabbed at his heart like an ice pick.

"She told me not to call her 'Livy' anymore," he complained, his voice grief-stricken.

"Yeah, well, she said a _lot_ of things that she shouldn't have," he muttered. "I've never heard her talk to you like that before. And I can't believe you let her off the hook so easy."

"If I postpone her Rite of Ascension, that'll be punishment enough for everything," he replied. "Where did I go so wrong with her?" he asked a moment later, the hopelessness and regret overwhelming his heart. "How did I make her hate me?"

Tomas sighed. "I don't think she really hates you, my _prijtel_ ," he said. "I think she's just mad. And parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth."

"Do you believe her when she says she's just sick of being treated like a baby?" Kuai Liang abruptly asked.

"No, there's definitely something else," he said. "And I think Alex and Morgan know what it is."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because whenever I bring it up and try to grill them for information, they clam up."

"Maybe I should just have someone hold her long enough for Anya to touch her," he mused. "Or maybe we should get Fujin to talk to her. He'd figure it out in two seconds flat."

"Absolutely not," Tomas said, tensing.

"I know that you hate it when he comes to see Morgan-"

"That's not it," he interrupted. He paused, sighing. "Look, Olivia already thinks she's a prisoner in this Temple. If you go invading her privacy, if you hold her down and _force_ her to give up her secrets, you're only proving her right. How would _you_ have felt if your dad did that to you?" Kuai Liang looked at him for the longest time, not saying anything, so he continued. "Patience, my _pr̆ítel_. She'll tell you herself when she's ready."

"Then what do I do in the meantime?" he asked in desperation.

"Make her Rite of Ascension really difficult," he suggested. "She'll have to prove her worth both physically _and_ spiritually."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Send her somewhere for an extended leave of absence," he said. "Somewhere far enough away from you to count as an actual test. She'll have to learn to survive without you constantly protecting her and keeping her safe."

Kuai Liang did _not_ like the sound of this so far. "And where is this place at?" he skeptically prodded.

"Send her to continue her training with Hanzo Hasashi and the Shirai Ryu," he said.

"Uh-uh, no way," the Grandmaster said the moment he heard the suggestion. He got to his feet and started pacing by his collection of rare books. "I am _not_ sending her to our rival clan."

" _Former_ rivals," Tomas corrected.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "I'm not sending my daughter to Japan by herself for several months. She couldn't even handle a weekend in New York."

"Would you just keep an open mind?" he said. "Her time with Scorpion would undoubtedly challenge her skill as a martial artist and force her to grow up both emotionally and spiritually."

"And undoubtedly traumatize her for life," he added. And then a new thought occurred to him. "Besides which, this is a moot point anyway. He'd never agree to this. He only trains boys."

"Maybe he'd make an exception," Tomas said. "He _does_ owe you a favor."

"You're missing the point," he argued. "I don't want her to go. She belongs here in the Temple with me and her family."

"That is all the more reason why she _should_ go," he insisted. "Maybe a break from each other would do you both good. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that nonsense."

"That is a _stupid_ saying."

"Look, Kuai Liang, she _needs_ to test her wings in this world," he argued. "She can't do that if you're constantly hovering over her, watching her every move." Tomas got to his feet and joined his friend, resting a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "My _pr̆ítel_ , it's time to let the baby bird leave the nest and learn how to fly."

Kuai Liang thought about it, and frowned when he realized he was giving serious consideration to Tomas' idea. The mere thought of Livy leaving the Temple, however, hurt him almost as bad as the words she'd spat at him earlier. She'd never been away from him for more than a weekend, at times when he and Anya would drop the kids off at his mother's house so they could have some much-needed alone time. But for several months and thousands of miles away in a clandestine clan full of nothing but men? The thought sat poorly in his gut.

But what if Tomas was right? Maybe time with Hanzo – who was sure to challenge Livy more than anyone – would make her appreciate what she had at home. She would also benefit under his tutelage; Raiden often raved about what an astounding teacher he was, and usually he brought it up when he was trying to needle the Cryomancer. But knowing Hanzo, the reports were accurate. The Shirai Ryu, when he'd observed them in recent years, were well-disciplined warriors with unimpeachable morality. Livy could come back with a deeper understanding of Ninjitsu and other Japanese martial arts, and perhaps a new-found respect for him, her family, her friends, and her entire clan.

Kuai Liang weighed the pros and cons in his mind, but came up with no discernable answer either way. He sighed. "I can't summon Scorpion here until I am a hundred percent certain this is the right course of action," he began.

"So what are you going to do?"

"I need a second opinion."

"From who?"

Kuai Liang saw a familiar face in his mind, knowing that he'd be difficult to contact but also knowing he was the only one who would give him the answer he wanted. Without another word, he strolled to his desk, grabbed his satellite phone, and began dialing a number.

* * *

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior: Well, Subby won't find out about Olivia and Alex's relationship for a while. But yeah, I do have something planned. Hopefully, the overriding theme of this is how they both come to make peace with each other and learn to appreciate each other. I want them both to grow and change so that they can rekindle their friendship and trust.**

 **ROCuevas: Thanks!**

 **Obelisk of Light: Yeah, but like Johnny said, Sonya yelled at her enough for the both of them! LOL I know that I want Alex to be quiet and chill, but I'm still experimenting with Morgan. I know that when she's with Fujin they'll be total goofballs together. But outside of him, I think she's going to be sweet but snarky.**

 **en-lumine: Thanks for the double-review! It _does_ make sense that the Lin Kuei had kids too, but alas, that's the only appearance Cassie and Jacqui will make in my story! I don't want to revisit a character soup like I did in _Curse_ ever again! LOL Yeah, I wanted to make each parent's reaction different but a lot more entertaining than most real life discussions are. Anya's yelling seemed like a perfectly humorous thing to do when faced with her drunk daughter. **

**PunkRoseBlitz: Oh, yeah, she _definitely_ needs an attitude adjustment. By the time she encounters Erron, she'll be singing an entirely different tune! Yeah, Subby's reaction was largely to show that he cared about Livy even though he was painfully mad at her. Kenshi will come into play after Reiko kidnaps Olivia and Takeda, and he will be none too happy. But I don't want to ruin the details for you, so that's all I'm gonna say about that ;) **

**Firebending Master: I hope I can depict Reiko as the badass I imagine, but time will tell. I want him to be frightening in a different way than Rain, Onaga, or Frost were.**

 **Guest: I agree. Having an OC can be a liberating thing, but I also think you have to do it well or else he/she turns into a Mary Sue. Olivia is kind of tricky because I'm making her so bratty at first. But she'll start to realize it and knock it off. Anyway, thank you for your support and I'm glad you enjoy my stories so much!**


	5. An Unexpected Visit

**Author's Note: Happy New Year, everyone! So I was going to postpone this update because I thought I needed to finish _Aftermath_ to explain how what happens here is possible. But then it occurred to me that I had Jax back with his family after I killed him in _Curse_ , and no explanation as to how it was possible, so hopefully, you realized that just like in MKX, Raiden revived him and sent him back to his family. Same thing with _this_ character... ;)**

* * *

At Kuai Liang's behest, Bi-han arrived at the Lin Kuei Temple precisely at 10:00 AM, having walked through the portal at General Blade's base alone. He could have teleported himself – after his restoration by Raiden in Quan Chi's palace alongside Jackson Briggs and Hanzo Hasashi, he'd retained Noob Saibot's powers – but Raiden had warned him long ago that every time he used his demonic abilities, the shadow still lurking inside him would grow stronger, and he would lose a bit more of his humanity. Though the darkness often urged him to give in, whispering words to lead him into temptation, he'd never succumbed, not once, in the fifteen or so years that he'd been free. Today, though that ever-present voice nagged at him to teleport, was no different. But stubbornly, he fought it off and chose to travel by more conventional means…sort of.

When Bi-han arrived in Arctika, he was met by Kuai Liang, who, to his surprise, had grown a thick, distinguished beard. He raised his eyebrow at his younger brother, but he said nothing about it, nor did he crack a smile as he greeted the Grandmaster. He wasn't exactly thrilled to be here, even if it _was_ to see his family. After Raiden had freed him, Hanzo, and Jax from Quan Chi, the newly resurrected Cryomancer sought solitude away from everyone and everything. His mother, Maggie, had helped him buy a small cabin high in the Adirondacks, far from civilization, where he could spend his days in quiet meditation. After witnessing all the horrors of the Netherrealm and spending years committing evil atrocities in Quan Chi's name, life in Earthrealm felt downright asinine. And he wanted no part of it, especially the Lin Kuei who he viewed as the original architects of his suffering.

"How have you been, Bi-han?" Kuai Liang cordially asked.

"Why, exactly, am I here, Kuai Liang?" he asked, impatiently skipping over the formal niceties. "Your message said it was important."

His younger brother withdrew his extended hand that meant to shake Bi-han's, and sighed. "Yes," he said. "It's about Olivia. Come. Let us speak in private."

Bi-han nodded and followed the Grandmaster through the maze of well-lit corridors with towering ceilings. As the two Cryomancer brothers walked, they passed cyber-ninjas, human adults, and children, all of whom bowed and greeted Kuai Liang respectfully. Bi-han felt pangs of surprise and surrealism each time this happened, just like it always did whenever he visited the Temple; in his youth, if someone had asked him if he thought that Kuai Liang would someday grow up to become the Grandmaster, he would have laughed in their face. His little brother was a hopeless klutz, a slow learner, and entirely too eager to please. But as odd as Bi-han felt about seeing him rule the Lin Kuei, he still felt tremendous pride. Kuai Liang had done many good things here, and he was providing his disciples much greater joy and honor than the Lin Kuei of old.

In his office library, the Grandmaster explained everything that had happened with Olivia as of late, from her fighting to cutting class, to nearly getting arrested. Bi-han listened patiently, his feelings on the matter tearing him in two separate directions. On the one hand, worry for his niece overwhelmed him, and he, like her father, wanted to solve the mystery of why she was behaving so obnoxiously. But on the other hand, he did _not_ appreciate her spoiled, childish behavior. He thought she could use a good ass-beating like he would've gotten at her age, and he said so.

"Threaten her with the cat-o-nine-tails," he drily remarked when Kuai Liang had finished his story. "That's what Dad would have done."

The younger Cryomancer scowled. "No, he wouldn't have _threatened_ anything."

Bi-han threaded his fingers together, interlocking his hands, as he propped his elbows on the armrests and leaned back. "I suppose that's true," he agreed.

"Besides, when she was born, I vowed never to do to her or my other children what Dad did to us."

"Yes, but they still need to be disciplined," he pointed out.

"Corporal punishment is _not_ what I had in mind."

"Well, what _did_ you have in mind for her?" he asked. "You can't let these offenses slide, especially her most recent stunt."

"That's actually why I asked you to come," Kuai Liang sighed. "I have something in mind for her, but I don't know if I should do it, and I want your advice."

"What is it?" Bi-han demanded to know.

The Grandmaster inhaled and exhaled slowly and deeply. "I thought of postponing her Rite of Ascension for a year. Tomas thinks I should send her to the Shirai Ryu to train under Hanzo."

The older Cryomancer looked at him in disbelief. "That's pretty harsh, Kuai Liang," he declared. "I was far worse than she was at her age, and even I wasn't punished as severely."

"I know," he agreed. "But nothing else seems to matter to her. So I asked you to come here to spend time with her. Talk to her to see if you think she's ready."

"Why don't _you_ talk to her?" he asked. " _You're_ her father."

"She doesn't talk to me anymore unless I force her to," he sadly declared. His eyes drifted to a picture frame at the corner of his desk. "She used to come in here all the time just to talk. About anything and everything, it didn't matter. But now she doesn't trust me anymore. Now she hates me."

"Then what about Tomas?" he countered, now feeling upset on behalf of his brother. This strained relationship with Olivia clearly wounded him, and Bi-han felt utterly helpless, unable to offer any advice. "She's closer to him than she is to me."

"Alas, she doesn't talk to me much either," Tomas' voice spoke as he materialized behind Kuai Liang's shoulder.

"How long have you been eavesdropping?" Bi-han snarled. Kuai Liang may have been fine with his best friend's antics, but he most certainly was not.

"Forty years," he smirked. "I'm getting pretty good at it too, don't you think?"

"I don't like being spied on."

"Oh, don't pout, Bi-han," he teased. "I do it with everyone. Saves Kuai Liang from having to fill me in later."

"Anyway," the Grandmaster said after he cleared his throat, "the bottom line is that _you_ have a proven track record of rebelliousness, Bi-han. She may feel like you can empathize with her."

A thin smile played across Bi-han's lips. "You mean that running away from the Lin Kuei and taking down the Cyber Initiative weren't rebellious enough for her?"

"Evidently not," he sighed. "But she also seems to look up to you. She thinks pretty highly of you."

The statement prompted him to scoff. "Why ever would she look up to _me_?" he asked, and his brother sadly shrugged, not answering. This clearly bothered him. A _lot_. Bi-han looked from Kuai Liang to Tomas and back again. "Very well," he finally agreed. "Does she know I'm here?"

"No," the Grandmaster said, now looking up to his top lieutenant. "Go get her," he ordered. "But don't tell her why I want her."

Tomas nodded, and then teleported from the room, leaving the two brothers alone. They sat in silence for a moment, and the shadow in Bi-han's head whispered possibilities through his thoughts, reasons for Olivia's behavior. It tugged him towards one particular end, but soon the voice became deafening in his mind, so he hopped to his feet and wandered to the book shelves in search of a distraction. His eyes flew over the titles, which had been printed, not surprisingly, in a variety of languages. Then he caught sight of one book he thought long gone, and it shocked him. He instantly yanked it off the shelf and began flipping through the medieval, hand-written pages until he found the picture he was looking for, a fierce man with a body built like a bull's, his jaw sternly set, his eyes as cold and as blue as Arctic ice: the original Sub-Zero.

" _The History of the Lin Kuei_ ," he muttered with a bitter laugh. "Where on earth did you get this?"

Kuai Liang chuckled at that as he joined his brother's side. "I led a field trip back to the old Temple last year," he reported. "Most of it was crumbling and dilapidated, and looters had made off with nearly everything I left inside after I took the cyber-ninjas to the States. But Tomas found a secret room inside Sifu Halsey's old sleeping quarters, hidden behind a trick wall. This was inside of it."

Bi-han scoffed, but he was smiling now, feeling nostalgic. "That old coot," he affectionately murmured. "I'm not _even_ surprised." He glanced up from the book and looked at his brother. "Anything else in this room worth mentioning?"

Kuai Liang shrugged. "Mostly sentimental things," he said. "Stuff he'd brought with him from Outworld. A few of his best weapons. Some Outworld money. Pictures he'd sketched, photographs of us. I don't know how he managed to sneak a camera by us, but he did." He laughed and shook his head. "Anya put them in an album. She was thrilled when I found them. She's always complaining about how little I talk about our childhood, so now she has evidence that I was, in fact, a child at one point."

The older Cryomancer softly snickered at that. "She should've come to me," he said. "I'll tell her anything she wants to know."

"Tomas beat you to the punch," he replied with a smile.

"Bastard," he joked, and both brothers laughed.

"And there were also a lot of letters," Kuai Liang continued a moment later. "Entire stacks. Mostly to Anya, Catja, and Kailyn, but a few to me and Tomas as well. And you."

Bi-han looked at him in surprise. "Oh?"

"I'll get them for you and give them to you before you leave," he said. "I would've given to you sooner, but you had gone off the grid around that time."

"Hmmph," the older brother murmured, lost in thought. Sifu Halsey had meant the world to him, had been the father he'd always wanted. He thought of the darkness inside of him, and knew that his old teacher would've been ashamed of what he'd become.

The two brothers stood in thoughtful silence for a moment, now staring at the faded paint of their ancestor's portrait. He had killed his Grandmaster and tried to start a family away from the Lin Kuei. A rebel. The first of many in their family, that spirit alive and strong five hundred years later. Bi-han supposed it was in their blood. And Olivia was just the latest one to carry on the tradition.

Then Kuai Liang said, "You're welcome to take back your code name if you wish."

With an irritated sigh, Bi-han slammed the book shut and shoved it back into its slot. "We've been over this," he growled, now scowling at the younger Cryomancer.

"I know," the other softly replied.

"I don't _need_ a code name."

"But you _do_ need your family."

"I can keep in touch without ever rejoining the Lin Kuei."

"But you _don't_ ," Kuai Liang shot back. "You hide out in that cabin of yours, _alone_. Cut off."

"I'm not always alone," he muttered. "Sometimes, Sareena visits me."

"Sometimes," he scoffed.

"You don't know what it's like," he exploded, feeling the shadow roar in his mind. His soul crept ever closer to the sleeping demon. "All these stupid people with their stupid little problems…They're like ants crawling inside of my brain."

"You think I don't know what that's like?" Kuai Liang snapped. "You think I don't wake up screaming, disoriented, thinking I'm back in Outworld being tortured, watching my friends die? But there comes a time when you have to be strong and get over it."

" _I_ died, Kuai Liang," he hissed. "I went to the Netherrealm. _Hell_. Because of the things I did for the Lin Kuei. The things I've seen? The things I've done? You don't just get over that."

"But-"

"Look, I _never_ wanted to be a part of the Lin Kuei, Kuai Liang," he said, his tone more sad than angry now. "From the moment Dad took us, I've looked for a way to escape. Now that I'm finally free, I am _never_ coming back."

"It's not a prison like it used to be," Kuai Liang argued.

"It doesn't matter."

" _This_ is where you belong, Bi-han," he argued. "Not living like some hermit on a mountain. I _need_ good warriors and leaders like you. I need _you_."

Bi-han sighed. "You're doing just fine without me," he replied. "And I am _tired_ of fighting. I just want to be left alone."

"Bi-han-"

"Look, Kuai Liang," he interrupted, "I know what you're trying to do. I know how much you miss fighting alongside me like we did when we were boys. But please…just respect my wishes."

The Grandmaster stiffened but nodded. "Very well."

"Thank you."

Then there came a sharp knock at the office door. Olivia. "Come in," her father called, and the door opened.

Olivia stepped inside wearing her black training clothes, and Bi-han was taken aback by how much she'd grown. He'd last seen her at Christmas two years prior, and she had to have been a full foot taller now, and with more feminine curves than he remembered. Her hair fell down her back just like her mother's, but it was pulled back into a French braid, and she wore make-up that accentuated the sapphire blue of her iris around her unbruised eye. Startled and slightly saddened, he realized she was no longer a girl, but a woman.

"Uncle Bi-han?" she asked in surprise as she ventured further into her father's office. "What are you doing here?"

The eldest Cryomancer exchanged a look with Kuai Liang, who barely smiled as he slightly nodded. He was mentally running down the list of reasons for his visit, trying to find the one that _didn't_ reveal he was her father's spy. But she was a smart kid, he knew. She'd sniff it out like a bloodhound in short order. Finally, he sighed and glanced back at his niece, who now stood beside him.

"Your father recently reminded me that your eighteenth birthday is in a couple of days," he explained. "I had to see this for myself. It hardly seems possible."

"But…you _hate_ to visit the Temple," she suspiciously remarked. "I haven't seen you in a couple of years."

"True," he agreed. "But I care for my family. And it's not every day that my oldest niece comes of age."

Olivia's expression changed from one of uncertainty to one of joy. Immediately, she threw her arms around his chest and hugged him tightly. Bi-han looked down at the top of her head in bewilderment, mildly uncomfortable, but then he relaxed and hugged her back. As he held her, he glanced at Kuai Liang, whose eyes betrayed both pain and jealousy in spite of his expressionless face. The oldest Cryomancer felt a twinge of guilt over it, and quickly peeled her off him.

"How long are you staying?" Olivia asked, looking at him hopefully, oblivious to her father's presence in the room.

"Just a few days," he said, mildly annoyed with her indifference. "Come," he ordered. "You're going to show me what you're made of."

* * *

Olivia soon found herself in the snowy courtyard outside the Temple, bundled up in her blue, fur-trimmed coat, walking beside her Uncle Bi-han, who also wore a coat and gloves, his all black. As they walked further away from the Temple proper, she studied him, finding her enigmatic uncle fascinating. He looked almost exactly like her father, though his face was gaunter, his sapphire eyes were ringed by dark shadows and faint wrinkles, and his walnut hair was frosted white at his temples. He, unlike the Grandmaster, had let his hair grow wild well past his ears, and the breeze gently lifted it into the air as he walked. But his body was built the same, lean but strong.

There the similarities ended. Olivia knew, from the times the entire Sullivan clan stayed at her Grammy Maggie's house for the holidays, that he was afflicted by awful nightmares. He'd start shouting in his sleep, and even when he'd wake up he was still lost somewhere else, somewhere awful. It would plunge him into a homicidal fury that saw him destroy furniture and attack his frightened family. Only her dad could stop him then, and he'd wrestle him to the floor and restrain him until he snapped out of it. At times like that, Olivia feared her uncle, even though her mom said he was suffering from PTSD and couldn't help it.

But in the daytime, he was better. The Grandmaster, Olivia's father, was stern and oftentimes humorless, but he had nothing on Uncle Bi-han, who had even less patience with nonsense than her father did. Even still, she respected him. He never minced words or treated her like a baby. He was quick to criticize and slow to praise, so if he ever paid her a compliment, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was sincere. Most importantly, he was completely fearless; she understood that when he was a child, he marched to the beat of his own drum and didn't give a damn what anyone thought about it. Even when he was trapped in that hell as the demon, Noob Saibot, he still defied his masters and did his own thing, even if it saw him punished severely. But with Raiden's help, he'd overcome that and became whole again. A lesser man, having gone through what he had, would have killed himself. But he was far too strong for that. So in a way, she realized, he was kind of her hero.

"So I understand that you've been causing a lot of trouble around here lately," he opened when they took shelter beneath the gnarled branches of an evergreen tree. They sat on a stone bench layered in ice that overlooked a snowy vale. But it was dark all hours of the day now, and even with the glowing lanterns casting warm light on their surroundings, they could see very little of the landscape.

Olivia sighed and rolled her eyes. "And now I know the _real_ reason you're here," she scowled, disappointed. " _He_ wants you to talk to me."

"The Grandmaster wants an outside opinion," he shot back, his blue eyes betraying anger though his face remained a cold mask. "You are nearly eighteen and close to your Rite of Ascension. But I've heard a lot of things I don't like. So I'm here to see whether or not you're ready."

Olivia felt like she'd just been slapped in the face. "He and I just talked-"

"And resolved nothing," he cut her off. "Except that he shouldn't call you 'Livy' anymore." He paused and frowned at her. "And why did you tell him that anyway? He's always called you that. Ever since you were a baby."

"The operative word there is 'baby,'" she snapped. "He treats me like an infant. I'm sick of it. I'm _not_ a little girl anymore."

Uncle Bi-han narrowed his eyes, though his blank expression never faltered. "So, let me see if I understand your logic," he began. "Your problem is that you believe that your father treats you like a baby. So your _solution_ to the problem is to behave like a baby."

Olivia bristled in annoyance. "I'm not behaving like a baby," she argued.

"No?" he countered. "Getting into fights, cutting class, almost getting arrested? These things smack of a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum to get attention. I find that decidedly infantile."

"But…I…" she stammered, unsure of what to say. His words rang full of truth.

"Your mother and father deserve better from you," he growled. "An Elite in the Lin Kuei not only has respect for him or herself, but for those around them as well, and _especially_ for the Grandmaster."

"He's my father first," she sighed.

"All the more reason to cut the crap, Olivia," he said. "But you're wrong anyway. When you become an Elite, he is your _Grandmaster_ first."

Now Bi-han got to his feet and wandered to the edge of the drop-off with his hands clasped behind his back. "I think there is some truth to this baby nonsense," he declared. "I think he probably _does_ treat you like a child more than he should. He strikes me as overprotective and perhaps even overbearing. And that probably makes it difficult for you to approach him like you so clearly need. And he, in turn, can't understand why you're drifting away from him when you two _used_ to be close."

"Gee, thanks," she mumbled, feeling only mildly validated by her uncle's observations.

"It sounds like things have gotten worse for you two this past year," he remarked. "I suspect it's because he, like you, knows that your Rite of Ascension is symbolic of you becoming an adult. And he's just not ready for that yet. I hear most parents never are." He silently stood in place for a moment, so long, in fact, that Olivia started to respond. But he abruptly cut her off. "Perhaps in his mind, if he treats you like a child, maybe you'll stay one a while longer."

"But he never treated the other kids like that," she argued. "He was proud of them when they passed their tests."

"And that makes you mad," Bi-han deduced.

"Well, of course it does!" she yelled in exasperation. "He treats orphans he picked up off the street better than me, his own daughter? It's not fair!" At the thought, Olivia nearly started to cry.

"You do realize you're being silly, right?" he challenged her. "He's behaving this way because the exact opposite is true."

"Arggh!" she grunted. "You don't understand and he doesn't understand and _nobody_ understands!"

Bi-han scoffed, though his face had softened in mild amusement and compassion. "Of course I do, Olivia," he said. "But I think there are things at work here that _you_ don't understand."

"Such as?"

"Has my brother ever told you about _our_ father?"

Olivia shook her head no. "The only thing he's ever told us is that he was terrible."

Bi-han scoffed. "Now _there's_ a word for it," he bitterly muttered as he gazed into the distant darkness. "Our father was cruel and abusive. You should get down on your knees every night to thank God that you didn't know what that was like. Had either of us behaved as you have been lately, An Zhi would have beaten us with a cat-o-nine-tails."

"Oh, my God!" Olivia gasped, throwing her hands to her mouth. She had never seen a whip like that in person, but she knew what it was regardless. "Your _father_ actually hit you two with that thing?"

"Where do you think my brother got those scars on his back from?" Bi-han asked.

"I didn't know," she confessed. "I just assumed they were from battles he'd been in. I used to ask him, but he'd never answer me."

"I suspect he was trying to protect you from the awful truth of our family," he replied. "He's worked very hard to break the cycle. To give you, your siblings, and all the children in the Lin Kuei a much better life than we ever had. The life we deserved."

Uncle Bi-han now turned to face her. "Your father got the worst of it growing up," he reported. "I easily learned everything my teachers wanted me to learn, and I suppose that helped deflect some of my father's wrath. Though, I got my fair share of it too," he murmured as he cast his eyes downward to the snow. "But _your_ father?" Her uncle sadly shook his head. "He was a runt back then, and everything was a struggle for him to learn. Everything but languages and hunting, that is." Now he half-smiled at the memory. "It was the damndest thing, Olivia, the way he'd learn a new language like that-" he snapped his fingers "-or bag a snow leopard with nothing but a bow and an arrow. It was amazing. He never ceased to surprise me."

"Really?" she asked as a surge of pride bloomed in her heart.  
Uncle Bi-han nodded, but then sadly looked away. "But it didn't matter to our father," he said. "He always thought Kuai Liang was weak and helpless, utterly worthless. He told him so all the time. And he beat him constantly just to toughen him up. He was a vicious bastard…" he trailed off. Then he looked at Olivia again. "He wanted your father to die, and he probably would've killed him outright himself if Grandmaster Oniro hadn't needed warm bodies so badly."

Olivia blinked back tears. "I never knew that," she said as she now looked at her lap.

"An Zhi, your grandfather, did horrible things to us all," Bi-han continued, "but he was the worst to your father. He _shattered_ his collarbone, almost let him die of pneumonia, beat him, let the bullies beat him, deliberately pit him against kids twice his size and skill level in sparring matches." He sighed. "He even punished Kuai Liang for _my_ mistakes."

"Why?" she asked, now dabbing at the corners of her eyes with her gloved fingers.

"To control me. To manipulate me. And the worst tragedy of it all was that no matter what An Zhi did to him, Kuai Liang loved him and desperately wanted him to love him back. And he tried so hard to please him. So hard." Bi-han shook his head and looked away.

"Why are you telling me these things?" she croaked, now unable to stop the hot tears from streaming down her cheeks. She wiped them away in embarrassment, but more tears immediately replaced them. She _hurt_ for her dad, even though those things were long in the past.

"Because you don't realize how lucky you are to have someone care for you as much as your father does," he replied. "Kuai Liang would have done anything just to get a mere ounce of love from An Zhi, love that you so ungratefully fritter away. He has always vowed that he would never let you feel so alone, so worthless, and so hated like he did when he was a child."

"Oh." She now looked at her feet in shame. She had been behaving like such a jerk lately.

"Your father may overcompensate sometimes, I know," he said. "But trust me. Too much love is far better than none at all." Bi-han met Olivia's teary eyes. "Do you understand?"

The young Cryomancer nodded. She had the overwhelming urge to find her dad and hug him. Uncle Bi-han was right. She _was_ lucky. She knew, from talking with her mom and her Grandpa David that people who were abused as children tend to repeat that pattern when they have children. But her dad had never put his hands on her once, even at his angriest. Instead, he'd always tried to talk it out with her instead. So why couldn't they do that this time?

It was a mystery, even to her.

Uncle Bi-han was not yet finished. He sighed heavily and then sat on the bench beside her again. "This is all about a boy, isn't it?" he deduced.

Olivia's eyes widened in surprise and she inwardly panicked. "How did you-"

"Because I'm not your father," he simply replied.

"What do you mean?"

"Kuai Liang has on blinders regarding his children," he explained. "I suspect every good father does." Bi-han looked at his niece. "You're his little girl – you always have been – and I am a hundred percent certain that he still sees you as that sweet, innocent child in that picture on his desk. When you were born, I don't think it ever occurred to him that you would someday grow up and become interested in grown-up things like love."

"But he can see me growing-"

"Logically, yes," he agreed. "But in his heart, you're still that little girl. And I think his willful blindness has gotten worse the closer it gets to your birthday. When you turn eighteen and pass your test, you are, for all intents and purposes, and adult. I simply don't think he's ready for that, even though you clearly are."

Olivia felt a swell of hope inside of her. "You think I'm ready to be an adult?" she asked.

"I wasn't certain when I first got here," he admitted. "But I think I'm getting through to you, and that gives me confidence." He looked at her pointedly. "But I have to know…who is it?"

"Why do you want to know?" she distrustfully asked.

"Because I think you'll feel better if you just tell _someone_."

She recoiled. "Are you going to tell my dad?" she nervously asked.

Bi-han shook his head no. "That's not my place, it's yours," he said.

Olivia nodded and cleared her throat. She knew he was telling the truth. "It's Alex."

"Tomas' son?"  
"Yeah."

"That's not terribly shocking," he simply said. "You've been best friends since you were children, yes?"

She nodded. "Yeah, we have."

"How have you managed to hide this from your mother for so long?" he asked with a smirk. "Or your Aunt Kailyn?"  
Olivia shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "I just haven't let them touch me at all."

He hummed thoughtfully. "Why are you so afraid to tell your parents the truth?" he demanded to know. "Especially your mom? She'd probably understand, having been a teenage girl once herself."

"You know my dad," she replied. "He'll freak out and do something crazy. I don't want Alex to get hurt. And I can't tell my mom because she'll tell him, and then the same thing will happen. So I _can't_ say anything to either one of them. And it makes me mad."

"I think you should give your father a chance," he advised. "Kuai Liang has _never_ gone crazy on someone like that, and especially someone he considers family."

"Except for you when you were all Dark Side, you mean?" she sassed. "Or Aunt Miyuki?"

"That was different, and you damn well know it," he crossly replied.

"But you're _family_ ," she said.

"A mature adult would give her Grandmaster the benefit of the doubt."

"Guys hit on me in that stupid club and threatened to do terrible stuff to me," she argued, "and my dad totally flipped out over it. I could only imagine if he knew-"

"That you slept with Alex?" Bi-han finished for her. She looked at him in stunned silence with mouth comically agape until he finally said, "Oh, come on, Olivia. I'm not stupid. You two have been close since you were babies. It wasn't hard to put two and two together." He shook his head in disgust. "I hope you were at least smart about it."

"I was," she swore.

"Well, that's _something_." He sighed. "He may be angry about that much, and can you blame him? I'd be mad too. His own daughter sneaking around behind his back, fooling around inside his home while he's not looking?"

"You're not going to tell him, are you?" she fearfully asked.

"No," he replied. "But I think you should."

"No, I can't," she argued. "He'll kill Alex. And I mean literally kill him."

Uncle Bi-han snorted in annoyance and shook his head again. "Maybe you're _not_ mature enough to graduate. If you can't be honest about your relationship, then…" he trailed off. "Come on," he said. "Let's go back inside. I want to spar with you."

* * *

"Well?" Kuai Liang eagerly asked Bi-han a few hours after his arrival.

The older Cryomancer said nothing at first as he walked into the Grandmaster's office and threw his heavy coat over the leather couch situated in front of the hearth. Inside, a large fire roared. He thought about it as he rubbed his sore ribs; Olivia gave him a better fight than he expected during their sparring match, and she'd struck his ribs pretty hard in the exercise. His side would be sore for a week.

"I think Olivia's form needs some polishing and she could work on her control," he finally answered as Kuai Liang and Tomas both looked at him expectantly. "She's a bit wild and impatient, and that's going to get her hurt one of these days." He cleared his throat. "But in terms of her Cryomancy, she's more advanced than _you_ were at this age. She's also fairly clever and quick on her feet. She reminds me of you, actually, Kuai Liang."

"See, I told you so, my _pr̆ítel_ ," Tomas remarked with a faint smirk.

"Shut up," the Grandmaster shot back. He nervously crossed his arms. "But what about the other stuff? Did she tell you anything?"

Bi-han sighed. He'd meant what he'd told Olivia; it was _her_ place, not his, to tell Kuai Liang about Alex. "She told me the same thing she's told you," he said, lying by omission. "She feels like you're treating her like a little girl." That much was true, at least.

"But why?" he asked in frustration, throwing his hands up in the air.

"It's as I've told her," he said. "You're not ready for her to grow up, so you think that if you treat her like a kid, she'll stay a kid forever."

"You couldn't be more wrong if you tried," he defensively snapped.

"I think I'm right," Bi-han calmly retorted.

"Well, you're not," he hissed.

"I think you should let her test," the older brother declared. "She's no different than any other apprentice on the verge of turning eighteen. She actually seems normal to me. A little immature and troubled, but nothing to worry about."

"Oh, yes, I forgot about your Master's Degree in human growth and development," he snarled as he stomped behind his desk and looked out the window.

" _You_ asked _me_ to come here and tell you what I think," he reminded his little brother. "And I have. Let her test, Kuai Liang. This is stupid."

The Grandmaster said nothing for the longest minute. He quietly interlocked his fingers behind him as he stared pensively into the darkness. Then he swiveled his head around to look at the photograph of him and Olivia sitting on his desk. Bi-han recognized the fear in Kuai Liang's blue eyes, and the confusion, and the pain as the younger brother studied it, lost in thought. At last, though, he winced but then bravely met Bi-han's and Tomas' gaze.

"I've made my decision," he announced.

* * *

 **ROCuevas: I hope the update was worth the wait!**

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior: Well, it's _sort_ of how she gets to the Shirai Ryu. But yeah, when she gets there, it'll be some of the hardest months of her life. You'll see ;) **

**Obelisk of Light: In my head, Morgan's kind of a free-spirit hippie chick, and when Fujin's around, they laugh it up and have a lot of fun. They'll definitely have some future interactions, so never fear!**

 **PunkRoseBlitz: Thanks, I'm glad you like him and her both!**

 **Guest: LOL**

 **iceangelmkx: No worries! I'm just glad you got here :) I'm glad you like my depiction of Olivia. I wanted her to be more multi-faceted than other teenage OCs usually see from writers on this site, and I am fighting really hard not to make her a Mary Sue. I agree; I think all these problems could be resolved if they could just talk to each other, but it's not as easy as that for her because her dad can be kind of scary to talk to. She doesn't look _exactly_ like Megan Fox; my idea there was that a lot of times, drunk guys say you look like someone even if you don't quite. Some guy once told me I look like Lucy Lawless and I'm like, "Uh, no." Anyway, no, Smoke hasn't changed much since _Curse_ , but I hope that's a good thing! He's gotta be my comic relief LOL So, did you guess right as to who Kuai Liang was calling? ;) **

**Rae Rae: Thank you so much!**


	6. I'm Sending You Away

**Author's Note: Thanks to Obelisk of Light, igot2ne1problems, iceangelmkx, en-lumine, and Hell-On-Training-Wheels for helping me remember the absolute dumbest code-names for a female Cryomancer that we've ever seen on this site LOL**

* * *

On October 9th, Olivia's 18th birthday, everyone in the Lin Kuei gathered in the Great Hall to hear the Grandmaster announce what her test would be. Nobody was more surprised by the turn of events than the candidate herself; even with Uncle Bi-han's endorsement of her, she didn't really expect her father to let her graduate. But to her astonishment, the previous night her father pulled her aside and instructed her to prepare herself for today. Ecstatic, she washed her best uniform and went to sleep early so she wasn't dog tired during the ceremony. She wanted to be at her best while she demonstrated fighting techniques or braved difficult obstacle courses in front of the whole Temple.

"Good luck," Alex quietly said to her as everyone stood around, milling inside the drab stone room, waiting for the Grandmaster to arrive. "You're going to do great." He gave her a friendly half-hug designed to look purely platonic. She sensed he would do more were they alone.

Olivia smiled at him, resisting the urge to kiss him in front of everyone, and nodded. "Thanks," she said, beaming at him.

"You nervous?" Morgan asked as she joined them. She, like Alex, wore her uniform, but rather than gray like his tunic, hers was dark purple, and she had done her bouncy gold curls up in a tight bun at her crown.

Olivia thought about the butterflies doing aerial stunts in her belly, and nodded. "A bit," she admitted as she smoothed her plain black tunic for the thousandth time in the past fifteen minutes. She looked up at Alex. "How do I look?"

"You look _fine_ ," he chuckled as he leaned against a round support column decorated with blue, geometric designs. She'd only asked him that five times. "You need to calm down. You've got this."

"I'm just afraid I'm gonna mess up," she said. "Like really afraid."

"Well, don't be," her best friend advised. "Couldn't be any worse than _my_ test."

"What was wrong with it?" Uncle Tomas indignantly asked as he sneakily materialized behind Morgan. He frowned as he rested his hands on her shoulders from behind.

"Nothing," she replied, unfazed by his unexpected arrival. She was painfully used to her step-father's antics. "I totally didn't mind navigating across a field full of land mines and smoke bombs to retrieve your ancient box of chewing gum."

"Those bombs weren't real," he scoffed. "We just wanted you to _think_ they were."

"Oh, great parenting skills, Táta," Morgan rolled her eyes as she craned her head up to look at him.

"Hey, just be glad the tests _now_ are different than the ones _we_ had to go through," he said. "Back in _my_ day, we actually had to do something dangerous to prove we were ready to serve the Lin Kuei. I had to steal the crown jewels from a very large and very angry Saudi prince that they wanted me to assassinate. He did _not_ go down easily. You see this scar?" He pointed to a tiny pock mark at his left temple. It looked like a moon crater. "I took his ruby ring to the head. Bled like a stuck pig."

"Was that back in the day when you had to walk in the snow, uphill both ways to get to the Temple?" Alex smirked as he crossed his arms and looked at his father expectantly.

"Yeah, back when you had nothing to eat but dirt, but you were _grateful_ to have that dirt?" Morgan added with a snicker.

"Back when you had nothing to do but whittle stuff out of corn cobs and stare at fire for fun?" Olivia teased, jumping on the bandwagon.

"Oh, you three are funny, _funny_ kids, you know that?" Tomas snidely remarked, though he wore a huge smirk on his face. "But your day is coming. Mark my words."

"Not for a very long time, Grandpa," Alex retorted.

"Now listen here, you little whippersnapper," the cyber-ninja said to him in his best old-man accent. "Didn't your father ever teach you to have some respect for your elders?"

"Well, now that you mention it, would you like me to get you a cane? Perhaps a recliner and a cardigan sweater?" his son shot back, which set Morgan and Olivia into giggles.

Uncle Tomas crossed his arms and stared at him in disbelief. "Okay, _můj syn_ , after this, you and me, in the Everest Room to spar."

"Aren't you afraid you'll break a hip?" he asked, and the girls laughed even harder.

Sam, Tommy, and Dom joined them then, and her little sister hugged her around the waist and said, "Happy Birthday, Olivia. Have you thought about what your code-name will be? I think Crystal or Storm would rock." She looked up at her with big, lavender eyes. The Cryomancer faintly smiled as she flicked the girl's stubby brown ponytail and started to answer, but was promptly interrupted by her younger brother.

"Snowflake," Dom snorted, and Olivia shot him an icy glare.

"You're an idiot," she hissed as she yanked his longish bangs and then pushed him backwards, even as the others chuckled. She sighed heavily and looked back to Sam. "I…don't honestly know just yet."

"What?" Morgan yelped. "Olivia! You have to choose! _Today_."

"I know, I know!" she cried, throwing her hands up in the air. "But it's a hard decision. I've never had to name something before, let alone _me_."

"You could go with Winter," Alex offered with a grin.

"Is this how you help me?" she asked, looking at him in exasperation. "Don't encourage these two jerks."

"I'm partial to Snowflake, myself," Dom said, crossing his arms and laughing.

"I'm partial to kicking your-" Olivia abruptly stopped her threat when she realized her Uncle was watching her closely. Quickly, she cleared her throat and shot her 14-year-old brother a frosty glare.

"You could always take your _father's_ old code-name," Uncle Tomas suggested with a knowing wink. "Tundra."

"Nice try, no sale," she immediately dismissed. The last thing she wanted was a recycled name, and her father's at that.

"I've got it, I've got it!" Tommy said before he burst out laughing. Everybody looked at him expectantly. "You should go up to Dad and tell him you want to be called…" He paused to draw out the suspense until Morgan smacked him on the head, knocking it out of him. "Elsa!"

Olivia groaned and rolled her eyes. "Okay, Thomas, first of all, you were a mistake. Just ask Mom and Dad." She took a threatening step towards him and backed him up. "Second of all, get out of my sight right this instant you little weasel."

"Give me one good reason why I should," he challenged as he defiantly crossed his arms.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't light you on fire right now," she growled.

The two siblings would've continued their exchange, but at that moment, a loud gong sounded and called everyone to attention. Olivia suddenly stiffened in panic as the apprentices began to line up on the right side of the Grandmaster's throne while the Elites and the Masters lined up on the left. The butterflies in her tummy flapped even harder, even though Morgan, Alex, Sam, and Uncle Tomas all gave her a much needed good luck hug before lining up with their peers. Adrenaline and anticipation surged through her veins, making her jittery. By the time the main doors swung open and her father walked in wearing his formal blue uniform and his ever-present scowl, her heart was pounding right out of her chest and she had shrank behind the lines of apprentices.

The Grandmaster, unaware of all of this, marched directly to his throne made of frosted glass to resemble ice, and he climbed several steps to a dais that was elevated at least five feet above everyone else. Olivia saw her mother follow closely behind him, but before the nurse reached the steps, she veered left and joined the adults, taking a spot next to Aunt Kailyn, Uncle Tomas, and Uncle Bi-han. Anya caught her oldest daughter staring and flashed her a reassuring smile.

For a long moment, the Grandmaster surveyed the room, taking in the sight of all his students, teachers, and friends. But finally he glanced at Olivia, who was shaking like a nervous chihuahua by a support pillar, and raised his scarred eyebrow at her. But finally, he sighed loudly.

"Today, we've gathered here in the Great Hall because one of our apprentices has turned eighteen," he began. "Olivia Leigh Sullivan, would you please step forward?"

Olivia calmly inhaled to soothe her anxious nerves, smoothed her face into an expressionless mask, and confidently walked towards the empty rectangle of space directly in front of her father's throne. She wove her way through her classmates, inwardly terrified but too proud to let anyone know it. Questions raced through her head, though. Mostly, she wondered what her test today would entail. Would she traverse an obstacle course like Morgan or would she spar with one of the Masters like Alex? She hoped she did well, no matter what her father asked of her.

And when it was all said and done, what would she say her code-name was?

She finally stepped into the open, all eyes pressed upon her, silently judging her and weighing her worth, she imagined. At the base of the stairs, Olivia stopped, put her fist to her heart in the Lin Kuei sign of respect, and looked expectantly at her father. His face, much like hers, was a cold mask that revealed no trace of emotion, yet his eyes betrayed him. Their deep, dark blueness revealed pain and turmoil that could not be suppressed. He gazed at her, looking her up and down, and then sighed heavily yet again.

"It has been our custom for hundreds of years to let apprentices undergo their Rite of Ascension on their eighteenth birthday," he announced as if it were some great revelation. "It's an important day because on it, we Masters test the candidate's skill in combat, problem-solving, and more." He inhaled deeply as he looked back and forth between the teachers and the students. "Yet, the thing that you apprentices don't realize is that your teachers are testing you every day. We're watching you, grading you on your work ethic, how much progress you make in class, and overall, what kind of people you're becoming. The Rite of Ascension isn't just one day of tests, but rather, the culmination of years of smaller, but equally meaningful, tests."

The Grandmaster now focused on Olivia. "I am usually proud whenever a candidate comes before me, ready to become an Elite to serve our Temple," he said. "And I thought the day my oldest daughter would come before me would be one of the proudest moments of my life. But in truth, I'm _not_ happy today, nor am I proud."

Olivia frowned, wondering where he was going with this. "I don't understand-" she started, but he held up his hand to interrupt her.

"Your behavior in recent months has been decidedly disappointing, Olivia," he said. "You've been failing those little, everyday tests I just spoke of, and I've struggled very hard with whether or not to let you undergo the Rite of Ascension." He exhaled shakily. "I've made my decision. You will _not_ test today," he declared.

Instantly, a wave of low murmurs and gasps raced through the crowd, and Olivia's cheeks flushed bright red as she looked up at her father helplessly. It was as if he'd just slapped her in the face. If he wasn't going to let her test, then why let everyone gather in the Great Hall as if she was? Why tell her to prepare herself for today? The air immediately left her lungs and her stomach turned queasily as if she were about to barf. Her lips began to quiver. Blue eyes so scandalized and betrayed looked up at him, filling with tears that stubbornly refused to fall.

"Quiet," the Grandmaster suddenly barked at everyone, and they obeyed. Then he looked to his daughter once again. "Olivia, I expect so much more out of you than anyone, and you've disappointed me time and time again. You _need_ to learn discipline before you can undergo the Rite of Ascension. But I don't believe you can learn that here, where you and I are constantly butting heads. You need a new teacher, one who will challenge you and push you to be the very best that you can."

"I…What do you mean, Grandmaster?" she stammered, fighting hard to control her wavering voice.

"Olivia," he sadly began, "I'm sending you away."

"What?" she yelped in spite of herself. Her cry was overshadowed by her mother's.

"Meet your new teacher," he said, motioning towards the back of the room, ignoring his wife's angry yell.

Olivia whirled around and saw behind her, standing by the main doors, an unfamiliar Japanese man clad in a yellow tunic standing with arms crossed. A thick, sleek beard covered his slender face, and sharp, amber eyes bored holes right through her. She recognized him immediately from his uniform and the familiar scorpion emblem embroidered onto the breast, though, even though she'd never met him in person before, and she furiously spun around to look at her father.

"The Shirai Ryu?" she screeched in fury as fresh adrenaline pumped anger through her. "You're sending me to the Shirai Ryu?"

"Grandmaster Hasashi has graciously agreed to train you," he said indifferently. "He will be the judge as to when you're ready to test, and when you're ready to come home. The harder you work for him, the shorter your stay will be. But play games and act the fool like you've been doing here, and you'll be gone for much longer."

"I won't do it," Olivia stubbornly hissed. "You can't make me go."

"Yes, you will and yes, I can," he replied, tensing perceptibly at her defiance. "You will go with him and do as I've instructed. It's for your own good, Olivia."

"Grandmaster, when I suggested this, I meant for _this_ to be her graduation test, not a punish-" Uncle Tomas began, but her father abruptly cut him off.

"I knew exactly what you meant," he shot back. He inhaled deeply and looked upon Olivia again, who couldn't even look back at him. She shook in fury as she looked at her feet; fog wafted from her fists, dusting them in frost. "You need to pack your things," he said, his tone gentler now than it had been only a minute ago. "You'll be leaving within the hour." Then he raised his voice again. "The rest of you are dismissed."

At the declaration, the rest of the Lin Kuei filed from the room. Anya, however, angrily stormed up to the dais and looked at her husband, who was now descending from his throne. "When were you going to tell _me_ about this arrangement?" she growled at him, putting her hands on her hips.

"I believe I just did," he said coldly as he joined her and Olivia at the bottom.

"You have _no_ right to send any of our children away without consulting me," she barked.

"I'm the Grandmaster," he retorted. "On the contrary, it's _absolutely_ my right."

"She's my daughter too, Kuai Liang!"

"You need to help her pack her things," he flatly replied. "We'll be taking her to Ft. Albany with Hanzo before he takes her through the portal to Japan."

"No way, uh-uh," she snapped, shaking her head. "You gave me no say whatsoever in this, and I don't approve of it at all. I'm not going with you. I'm staying right here." She looked at her daughter. "Come on, Olivia."

Anya cast one last angry look at her husband and then led the teenager from the Great Hall, making it a point to bump shoulders with Hanzo, who stood beside the main doorway still. She didn't apologize.

Olivia, meanwhile, couldn't find her voice. She was stunned mute and shaking as fire surged through her veins. How could her father do this to her? Was one little indiscretion really so bad to warrant this? And worse, why did he let her get her hopes up? She had never felt more humiliated in her life. It was bad enough to be denied her Rite of Ascension, but it was even worse that he'd stripped it from her in front of the whole Temple. Her obnoxious brothers had seen that, and they'd never forget. Worse, _Alex_ had seen that, and she never wanted to look like a fool in front of him. The Grandmaster's betrayal stung at her eyes and dribbled down her cheeks in slick rivers.

"Mom, you have to stop him," she unexpectedly uttered, her voice cracking.

Anya looked at her with pity and regret. "I can't," she said. "He's already decreed this in front of the whole Temple. If I lean on him to change his mind now, he'll look like a weak, ineffective leader to the Lin Kuei _and_ the Shirai Ryu."

"God, _you're_ so weak!" she suddenly exploded. "You just bow down and do whatever he says."

"Oh, honey, you have _no_ idea the extent of my powers," she shot back. "He's not gonna get away with this. I promise you, he _will pay_."

"Mom, please send me to Grammie's house," she begged. "Or boot camp with General Blade. Just _please_ don't make me go to the Shirai Ryu."

"I can't stop it-"

"Then what good are you?" she shouted. Anya took a step towards her to touch her shoulder reassuringly, but angrily, Olivia swatted it away. "Don't touch me!" she shrieked. "Just leave me alone!"

She broke off into a sprint down the hall and quickly reached her room. By that point, the tears cascaded down her face. What was supposed to be her best birthday ever had turned into the worst birthday ever, and in just fifteen short minutes. She hated her mother, and she hated Hanzo Hasashi, but most of all, she hated her father. That arrogant prick just lived to ruin her life. She wished he would die a slow, painful death.

Inside the girls' dorm, she wasn't surprised to find Morgan there, on her bunk bed, waiting. No one else was inside the room. "Hey," she said sadly, looking up at Olivia as she approached. She got to her feet. "I figured you could use some help so I started packing for you. Didn't think you'd be in the mood."

"Morgan…" she whined as she collapsed into her friend's arms and began to sob. "I don't want to leave you and Alex and Gat and Bay."

"We'll be here, waiting for you to get back," the Hydromancer tried to console as she pressed Olivia's head onto her shoulder and stroked her braided hair.

"Yeah, but what are the odds that the Shirai Ryu have running water?" she whined. "And there's nothing but boys there. So what if I run out of stuff for my period? Will they let me go into town to buy some?"

"Sweetie, I don't know," she said. "I'd have to think they would."

"Yeah, but that means I'd have to tell Master Hasashi, and I don't _want_ to tell him anything like that," she wailed onto her friend's shoulder.

"You think about the weirdest things sometimes," Morgan laughed as she patted Olivia's long braid and dragged her down to the edge of the bed where they huddled.

"How could my dad do that to me?" she abruptly changed the subject, wiping her nose on her best friend's shoulder. "He just ripped my heart out in front of everyone. How could he?"

The Hydromancer shrugged. "I don't know," she said truthfully. "I still can't believe he did that."

"I'm so embarrassed," she moaned as someone knocked on the door.

"Come in," Morgan called. A moment later, Alex stepped in.

Immediately, Olivia sprang to her feet and ran into his arms. As expected, he held her for a long moment, stroking her hair and gently swaying to comfort her as she bawled into his chest. But soon, she pulled away and looked up at him with a tear-stained face. "My father's an ass," she declared.

"And this time, I'd have to agree with you," he told her before he kissed her forehead. "I brought you something," he said as he took her hand and led her to her bunk bed. "A little something to remind you that I'm here, waiting for you to get your butt back home as soon as you can."

He reached into his tunic pocket and pulled out a tiny photograph that he immediately handed to her. In the picture, he was laughing as she kissed his cheek, also laughing. Olivia instantly remembered this day. While their two families were at the mall doing their Christmas shopping, the couple had broken away from everyone, found a photo booth, and crammed into it to take this shot. Olivia flipped the photograph over and saw that Alex had penned in tiny, scratchy letters, _Alex Vrbada is the best BF ever._

"Subtle," she laughed, prompting him to laugh. Her spirits instantly rose. She then handed the picture to Morgan, who read the back and rolled her eyes.

" _Very_ subtle," the Hydromancer added as she slid the picture into the top flap of her friend's suitcase.

"You're going to be okay," he reassured as he sat on the bed next to them and took Olivia's hand. "We're better than the Shirai Ryu with our hands tied behind our backs and our eyes blindfolded. You're gonna give them a run for their money."

"I don't want to go," she said for what felt like the millionth time. "This isn't fair."

Alex nodded. "I know," he said. Then he leaned over and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her into the crook of his armpit. Morgan, meanwhile, began patting her back. "Work hard," he said a moment later. "Don't piss off Grandmaster Hasashi. I want you to get back here as soon as possible. And in one piece."

"I'll do my best," Olivia whimpered, suddenly very tired.

"I'll miss you," he said as he planted another kiss on her head. Then he crooked a finger beneath her chin, pulled her tear-stained face up to look at his, and planted a soft kiss on her lips. "I love you, weirdo. And everything's gonna be okay."

"I love you too," she mumbled as she cuddled against him once more.

"Will you write?" Morgan asked with a sunny tone to her voice, a blatant attempt to lighten the mood.

"Oh, sure," Olivia sniffed. "I'll have my personal messenger owl deliver my letters every day."

"Curse you and your insidious logic," she retorted as she shook her fist. "I meant _email_ , you brat," the Hydromancer said as she nudged her playfully.

The Cryomancer shrugged. "I doubt the Shirai Ryu have computers," she said. "But if I get the chance, then yeah, I'll email you."

Someone knocked at the door, then, but this time, rather than wait to be invited in, Anya entered, holding a tiny box wrapped in metallic green paper, Olivia's favorite color. The nurse cast a stern glance from Alex to Morgan and then gestured towards the door. "You two. Out."

"No, I want them to stay," Olivia protested as the step-siblings got to their feet. She joined them and grabbed their arms, forcing them to stop. "They're the only ones who care about me in this Temple. So whatever you want to say to me, you can say to them."

Her mother sighed. "Olivia, I'm so sorry he's doing this to you," she apologized. "I didn't know anything about this. I would've stopped him beforehand if I did, when I still could've made a difference."

"You can make a difference _now_ ," she shot back. "You just don't want to because you're afraid of him."

Anya chortled. "Hardly," she scoffed. "But-"

"What do you want, Mom?" she demanded to know.

The Hydromancer looked at her sadly. "It's your birthday," she said regretfully as she took a step forward. "And it's a special one."

"It _feels_ special," Olivia snarled.

"I know," she nodded. "It wasn't supposed to go this way. I had an entirely different idea about how this day was supposed to go."

"You're not the only one," Morgan half-laughed.

Anya inhaled deeply and looked at the step-siblings again, but this time, her expression had softened. "Look, kids, can you please give a moment alone with Olivia?" she asked.

"No," the Cryomancer stubbornly said at the same time Alex said, "Yeah." Then he cast a stern look at her and said, "Talk to your mother, Olivia. Quit being a butt. We'll be waiting outside when you're done." And with that, he led Morgan from the dorm.

A heavy silence filled the air, suffocating Olivia. Her mother was the enemy, and almost as big a one as her father. She genuinely believed the nurse had nothing to do with her punishment. But because she passively stood by and refused to help her own daughter get out of it, she had betrayed her too. The teenager crossed her arms and glared at her mom expectantly.

"Let me help you pack," she said.

"I've got it covered," she growled.

"All right, that's enough," Anya finally snapped. "You're as much to blame for this as anyone. If you'd just _talked_ to me instead of acting out, none of this would've happened. So own up, kiddo."

"I'm not having this conversation again," Olivia hissed as she whirled around and started dumping clothes from her footlocker into her suitcase.

Her mother sighed, joined her side, and pulled them out to neatly fold them. "I know you're angry, and rightly so," she said as her daughter slammed the folded shirts into the suitcase. "But try to find the silver lining in all of this."

"And what could that possibly be?" she retorted. "My own father punished and humiliated me in front of the whole Temple. He's shipping me off to his mortal enemy."

" _Former_ enemy," her mom corrected.

"That's not really better," she replied. "He doesn't want me-" Fresh tears sprang to her eyes as a new revelation occurred to her. "Dad doesn't want me anymore."

Anya looked at her in bewilderment and pity. "Oh, honey, that's not true," she tried to console as she stopped folding clothes.

"Isn't it?" she challenged. "I start thinking for myself and stop being the good little girl he wants, and suddenly he's shipping me off to Japan."

"You've _always_ thought for yourself," her mother pointed out. "I don't think that has anything to do with it."

"Then what?" she asked.

"I think he thinks he's doing what he thinks is best for you. That you'll flourish and grow as a warrior and a person under Grandmaster Hasashi."

Olivia shook her head in disgust. "Maybe after my new Grandmaster turns me loose, I'll just leave the Shirai Ryu and the Lin Kuei and never look back. You'll be lucky to get a postcard from me. I'm eighteen now. I can do what I want."

Anya sighed, started to say something, and then stopped herself. Now she shook her head. "Look, it's your birthday," she said. "And I brought you your present."

She grabbed the small box with the green paper that she'd set aside a few minutes before and handed it to Olivia. The young Cryomancer looked at it as if it were a poisonous snake, but then sighed and reluctantly took it from her. She carefully ripped through the paper and found a red velvet jewelry box. Olivia looked at her mother in surprise; she'd never gotten jewelry from her before.

"Open it," Anya urged with a faint smile.

She obeyed. Inside was a delicate silver necklace with an intricate snowflake pendant crusted with diamonds and sapphires inside. The jewels had been polished well, and the pendant glittered so vividly that it cast sparkles on the wall. Olivia couldn't suppress the gasp of awe and surprise.

"Do you like it?" her mother asked hopefully.

"It's beautiful," she breathed, truly entranced by it. For the moment, she'd forgotten about her anger.

"Like I said, it was a special birthday," Anya said with a smile. "It warranted a special present."

"How did you…what gave you the idea?" Olivia stammered, confused as to how this was happening. She looked at her mom for an answer.

The nurse shrugged. "Well, actually, I can't take credit for this," she said. "This was your _father's_ idea. He asked the jeweler to custom design it-"

"This is _Dad's_ present?" Olivia cut off, instantly furious again.

Anya looked at her in puzzlement. "Yeah," she said slowly.

Immediately, Olivia hurled the box at the farthest wall as hard as she could. It thumped loudly as it bounced off a good five feet and then landed pitifully on the tiled floor.

"I don't want _anything_ from him," she snarled, glaring at her mother. "He's not my father."

"Olivia!"

"Let's just get this packing done," she hissed, gathering up more of her black training clothes. "I have to leave soon."

* * *

 **PunkRoseBlitz, Happy Birthday! :) Hope it was a good one! I definitely try to make all my dialogue realistic, so I'm glad to see you think I succeeded there. After this chapter, though, I doubt she'll appreciate her dad for a while ;)**

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, I don't know that Bi-han's smarter, per se, but he's definitely more logical whereas Kuai Liang is more emotional. So that allows him to be more objective like a scientist.**

 **ROCuevas, hahaha I did that on purpose. What did you think about his decision?**

 **en-lumine, aw, thanks. Cookie gladly accepted. It's peanut butter, I see. My favorite! How did you know? ;) Thanks about Bi-han. I tried to revisit what he's like in _Tales From the Lin Kuei_ , only a grown-up version. Yes, kids all over the world go through this with their parents, so I think it's a very universal thing worth exploring. And like most kids, Olivia will eventually realize that she appreciates her parents more than she knows. **

**Obelisk of Light, I still eventually plan on visiting Bi-han's reconciliation with Fujin in _Aftermath_ , but I planned on including it in this story as well ;) Olivia's interaction with Hanzo and Takeda are coming soon! **


	7. Welcome to the Shirai Ryu

**Author's Note: Today is Edgar Allan Poe's birthday, and he would've been 207 years old. So go toast the Raven, this incredibly brilliant and influential writer, with a glass of absinthe!**

* * *

Kuai Liang sighed for what felt like the umpteenth time that morning as he stepped into his sleeping quarters to shed his ceremonial robes and change into his plain blue tunic, hoping that his plan to teach Livy some respect worked as well as he'd wanted. He didn't particularly like the idea of sending her to Japan, but as Tomas had pointed out when he'd first mentioned this idea, it might give his oldest daughter a chance to test her wings and fly. And if nothing else, Hanzo was sure to light a fire under her ass and get her properly motivated to straighten up.

"You are a gigantic ass!" Anya hissed as she suddenly stormed into their room, slamming the door behind her. "What on _earth_ were you thinking, deciding to send Olivia away like that?"

Kuai Liang dispassionately looked at her as he neatly draped his uniform on a hanger. "I was thinking that I don't know my own daughter anymore, and that nothing is getting through to her," he calmly replied, though a heaviness weighed on his heart. "This decision wasn't easy, Anya. I've been struggling with it for the last few days."

"Has _everyone_ lost their damn minds?" she snapped as she tossed Olivia's necklace box onto the bed and then threw up her hands in exasperation. "Olivia won't talk to me, and now you won't either. I could've helped you figure this out, but no. You just do whatever the hell you want like you always do. I'm sick of this, Kuai Liang!"

"I didn't ask you because I knew you'd just say no," he defended his decision.

"That's right!" she exclaimed and then pointed to her temple. "What does that tell you?"

"Look, Anya, this isn't easy for me," he repeated, sighing yet again. He felt a twinge of pain when he thought about Livy leaving for several months. "This is hurting me far more than it's hurting her."

"Don't bet on it," she hissed. "She's in her room, a total mess-"

"Well, that's not my fault," he protested, irritated. " _She_ made her bed. Let her sleep in it."

"It's not your fault?" his wife challenged, her cheeks scarlet red. "You publicly humiliated her in front of the whole Temple! If you didn't want her to test, fine. But you shouldn't have done that."

"I _had_ to do that," he justified. "I wanted everyone to see that no one is above the rules. Not even my own daughter. I used to hate it when Sektor would get away with murder simply because he was the Grandmaster's son. I never wanted to show my kids that kind of favoritism. I thought it'd help them turn into better people later on."

"Well, aren't you a real hero?" she scoffed, crossing her arms. "I'm shocked Olivia hasn't nominated you for Father of the Year." Anya scowled at him and then stomped back to the door. She paused and looked at him. "She thinks you hate her. She thinks because she messed up, you've stopped caring about her." She shook her head in disgust. "You take way too much for granted, Kuai Liang. And it's gonna catch up with you one of these days. If you keep playing your cards like this, you're gonna lose her. Forever. If you haven't already."

The Cryomancer stared at his wife quietly for a long moment before he finally pointed to the opened jewelry box. "You gave Livy her present?" he asked. He was mildly angry that Anya did that without him. It was supposed to be from them both.

His wife scoffed and crossed her arms. "Yeah."

"She doesn't want to take it with her to Japan?"

"She doesn't want it, _period_ ," Anya said. "Because it was _your_ idea. She said she wants nothing to do with you."

Kuai Liang looked up at her in bewilderment, instantly wounded. "What?" he spoke in confusion.

"I told you that you take far too much for granted," she growled, frowning. And with that, she left, slamming the door for a second time.

Kuai Liang sighed yet again and sank onto his bed, grabbing the box. He opened it and looked at the snowflake that he'd helped design. The jeweler had showed him pre-existing patterns, and it definitely would've been simpler to choose a pendant that had already been made. But no, he'd insisted, Livy was special, this birthday was special, and she deserved a snowflake that no one else had. So he'd spent hours sketching one of his own, working in painstaking detail until it was just right, skipping sleep and neglecting paperwork until it was done. And then, he'd given the drawing to the jeweler, who'd set about crafting it to his specifications. It was mostly encrusted with diamonds, but three tiny sapphire chips glittered at the heart as if they were smiling.

And Livy didn't even want it.

Kuai Liang frowned. Perhaps this whole Japan thing had been a mistake. Maybe Anya was right; Livy _had_ looked crushed when he'd told her she wouldn't be graduating today. Her eyes had looked up at him, so helpless, so betrayed. Even from his spot high above her, he'd been able to see her fight back the tears forming in her eyes. His decree had hurt her, and bad.

 _But that's not my fault_ , he reminded himself. Livy was the one who'd been behaving like a brat, not him. He was her father and not her friend. His job wasn't to win her approval or get her to like him. His job was to prepare her for the real world and mold her into a decent human being, and in order to do that, sometimes he had to make tough, unpalatable decisions that she'd hate. So if she didn't want to go to Japan, she should've thought twice about letting Cassie lead her to that club.

 _Besides_ , he reasoned, _she'll thank me later. She may not see this as a good thing right now, but someday, when she's an adult and has a kid of her own, she'll appreciate the things I had to do to put her on the right path._

But as Kuai Liang studied the snowflake resting in the jewelry box on his palm, trying to convince himself that he really believed that, he was filled by a nagging suspicion that something was wrong with this plan and that he was making a huge mistake.

* * *

Olivia said nothing as she, Grandmaster Hasashi, and her father prepared to leave the Lin Kuei Temple through the portal, even when her friends hugged her to say their goodbyes, even as Sam started to cry because her big sister was leaving. For once, Tommy and Dom had nothing snarky to say, or if they did, they kept a lid on it because their mother kept flashing them stern looks that silently ordered them to zip it. But even if they had said something, Olivia doubted she would reply back. She was just too numb to speak.

Her mother sniffed then, holding back her tears, and she smiled reassuringly at Olivia when she caught her. Anya would not be going to Ft. Albany with them; it was her way of protesting the Grandmaster's decision to send her daughter away without consulting her first. It was a noble gesture, but ultimately it didn't really matter to the teenager. As far as Olivia was concerned, it was a feeble, half-hearted attempt to stand up to her father. If she really cared about her, she would throw a bitch-fit until Kuai Liang caved and let her stay home. When Anya hastily wrapped her arms around Olivia to hug her, the young Cryomancer angrily squirmed free and scowled at the woman. But still, she said nothing.

Her silence continued to the portal room in Ft. Albany. General Blade greeted them cordially, though she refrained from making small talk and quickly ordered her techs to open a portal to somewhere in Shikoku. Immediately, they went to work and their fingers flew across space-age touchscreen keyboards. A melody of electronics chirps and beeps cut through the silence, and in moments a portal appeared, its cloudy blue arms rotating through black liquid like a spiral galaxy. It quickly focused, though, and through the gelatinous event horizon, a bucolic forest in autumn came into view.

Olivia refused to look at her father as she joined her new Grandmaster's side, preparing to walk through the portal as soon as General Blade's techs opened it. She hated him. _Hated_ him. It started deep in her gut and ballooned through her chest, lodging right behind her ribcage where it poisoned her soul with malice. She stood there, beside Grandmaster Hasashi, gritting her teeth so long and so hard that quickly, her jaws and ears hurt. Her hands involuntarily glowed blue with her power, and a fine, crystalline power was beginning to spread across her backpack's strap of its own accord. Words or feelings could not express how _angry_ she was at her father for doing this to her, and for how much she loathed him because of it.

"Olivia," Kuai Liang called to her to say goodbye, but she ignored him, scowling.

" _Deshi_!" Grandmaster Hasashi suddenly barked at her, startling her and making her jump. Bewildered, she looked up at him. He towered at least a foot above her, and his amber-colored eyes glared back at her. "My students show their betters respect in _my_ Temple," he said. "Look at your father when he speaks to you."

Olivia almost told him no. She didn't care _what_ the Shirai Ryu did to her as punishment. They couldn't make her look at the one man on the planet that she wished dead where he stood. But in the end, she chickened out. She'd heard tales of the legendary Scorpion, and she decided she didn't want to test her luck with him before she'd even arrived at her new home. So she obeyed her new Sensei and inhaled a ragged breath before she slowly turned around.

Kuai Liang's arms were crossed and his face was his usual, stern mask. Olivia looked at him expectantly, even angrier that he didn't even seem to care that he was shipping her off to Japan, to the Shirai Ryu, once the Lin Kuei's mortal enemy. Maybe if he'd called out to her to tell her to stop, that he'd changed his mind, that he wanted her to stay and take her test for _real_ , he would have tempered her ire. But he just stood there, with his arms crossed, staring at her, content to let her go.

Inwardly, Olivia screamed in frustration, but calmly inhaled through her nose and said, "Yes, Grandmaster?"

"I love you," he told her, and she didn't even try to hide her eye roll. No, he didn't. Who was he trying to fool? Her father chose to ignore her show of disrespect, though, and then he said, "Represent our clan well. Make me proud."

The young Cryomancer looked from him to her new Grandmaster and back again. "Yes, sir," she said as politely as she could, but still letting the venom drip from her words. By then, Grandmaster Hasashi had stepped fearlessly through the portal, never looking back. As soon as he had disappeared through, she rudely whirled around and followed after him, not bothering to look at her father as she left.

She emerged in a forest at the base of a mountain where a great Temple had been carved into the rock. She looked up and around in awe, catching the scent of pine sap and wood smoke on her nose as her braided hair floated behind her on a slight breeze. Tree leaves in shades of reds, golds, and browns fluttered to the ground as the wind passed through. It was warm here for October, and colorful, quite unlike Arctika, which was cold and dark and always white with snow, never seeing daylight until March. In spite of herself, Olivia gasped.

"Do you have something to say, _Deshi_?" her new Sensei demanded to know.

"It's…beautiful, Grandmaster," she told him. He merely harrumphed at that.

"Follow me," he ordered, heading towards the Temple without breaking stride. He moved fast, and Olivia had a hard time keeping up. "I will not tolerate insubordination," he began. "Any act that I deem disrespectful will be punished in a way I see fit. Your father put up with you, _Deshi_ , but I will not." Her Grandmaster hurried up the steps leading inside the Temple, passing many of the students, curtly nodding at them when they bowed to him. "I expect you to share responsibility for the daily chores. You will attend all assigned classes without fail."

"Yes, Grandmaster," she said, panting.

Hanzo now led her down a wide stone corridor that wound deep into the mountain. "The Shirai Ryu rise at 5:00-"

"5:00?" she squeaked in disbelief, unable to stop herself. Immediately, he stopped in his tracks and glared at her. "I'm not complaining, Grandmaster," she hastily said, throwing up her arms deferentially. "I was just double-checking to make sure I heard you correctly."

He said nothing, but rather whirled around and started marching down the hall again. _5:00?_ _Oh, God, I'm not gonna make it_ , she moaned in her head as she followed him. She wasn't even ready to roll her butt out of bed at six when the Lin Kuei began _their_ day. More often than not, Morgan had to drag her covers off her so that she'd start to get cold, but sometimes that didn't even work. Sometimes her mother had to get her up, and she brought water…

"We have our morning meal after the early chores are done," Grandmaster Hasashi continued. "Then we train and do chores until our evening meal. We have one hour of free time after that, and then we sleep." He stopped at a wooden door on the left hand side of the hallway. "Do you understand what I have told you so far, _Deshi_?" he demanded to know.

"Yes, Grandmaster," she said, nodding.

"The boys sleep in dormitories on the other side of the Temple," he declared.

"And where will I sleep?" she wondered out loud.

"You are the only girl in the Shirai Ryu," he told her. "So _this_ is where you will sleep. You are not allowed to leave this room in the night for any reason, and none of the boys are allowed to come in here for any reason. I sleep just across the hall, _Deshi_ , so I will _know_ if you've left it or if you have visitors. I have ears like a bat and eyes like a hawk." With that, he opened the door to a tiny room barely larger than a broom closet. There was nothing in here but a single narrow cot dressed with one wool blanket and an old pillow, a wardrobe for clothes, and a little woodstove in the corner. A plain white chamber pot full of cobwebs sat in the other corner, collecting dust.

Olivia hated her father. She really _really_ hated her father.

"Do you have anything to say?" he asked, his tone stern and unfriendly.

"It looks…cozy," she replied, but her voice squeaked with insincerity.

"You will find that my students live much differently than you did at the Lin Kuei," he said. "They do not have any extra luxuries. They live simply, without many of the conveniences of modern life."

"Yes, Grandmaster," she said.

"I _do_ ,however, own a satellite phone to keep in contact with Raiden's other Champions," he told her a moment later. "I will allow you to use it once a week to contact your parents, or for them to contact you."

Olivia cleared her throat and frowned. "Thank you, Grandmaster," she said, looking up at him. "But I doubt I'll need it."

He gave her a disapproving stare and then shook his head. "There are Shirai Ryu training clothes in your wardrobe," he told her. "Change into them and join me in the yard for further instructions."

"Yes, Grandmaster." She started to walk into her new room, but then remembered to bow to him before leaving. Her gesture seemed to please him, and the corners of his lips almost smirked. But it was gone as fast as it had appeared, and that battle hardened mask had returned once again.

"Do as I have commanded," he said before he whirled around and marched down the hall the way he'd come.

"Happy Birthday, Olivia," she sarcastically mumbled as she threw her backpack and suitcase on the cot.

Then she stepped to the old wardrobe, noting the faded paint and splintering wood. Neatly folded and placed inside were two crisp pairs of black hakama pants, two black kimonos, a brilliant yellow sash, and a pair of tabi boots. Sighing heavily, she pulled the clothes out and changed into them as the Grandmaster had instructed. The material was coarse and her skin instantly felt itchy. Anxiously, she began to scratch her skin, dragging brilliant red tracks through her pale skin.

"Frickin' great," she mumbled before she left her room and went in search of her new Sensei. Olivia soon found him in the yard where he said he'd be, surrounded by a group of four boys who looked to be roughly her age, all of them of Asian descent except for one who was black.

" _Deshi_ , these are your new classmates," Grandmaster Hasashi said in Japanese. She got the gist of the statement, but her Japanese was rough and she struggled to comprehend it, even as he pointed to them and introduced her. "Fox, Naoki, Akio, and Takeda." He looked at them. "This is Olivia. She is from the Lin Kuei."

Immediately, all four of them tensed and frowned at her. It didn't take a genius to figure out why. "Hello," she timidly said after straining to remember the word in Japanese. They scoffed as if they couldn't believe she'd just talked to them. She nervously scratched her skin again.

Now Grandmaster Hasashi rattled off another command, but this time, Olivia couldn't decipher it entirely. It was something about wood. She looked at him in both panic and confusion, hoping for an explanation in English, but as soon as the boys said, "Yes, Grandmaster," also in Japanese, he turned and stalked away. Her classmates then turned around and walked off in the opposite direction.

"Wait!" she yelped, trotting to catch up with them. They didn't slow their pace, but said nothing as she joined them, and then led her to a clearing through a thick stand of trees where piles of firewood had been neatly stacked for splitting. "What are we doing here?" she finally asked.

"Didn't you hear the Grandmaster?" the teenager named Akio smirked. "He told us to split logs for this evening."

"I…I didn't understand him," Olivia confessed, her cheeks already flaming red. "I don't speak Japanese that well."

The one called Fox, the black teenager, nudged his shorter friend in the ribs. "I can't believe Grandmaster took on a Lin Kuei dog as his student. Can you, Takeda?" he asked.

The shorter teenager laughed. "Not really," he said. "Must be a charity outreach thing or something."

"Yeah, he probably just feels sorry for her for not getting a _real_ education."

The Cryomancer scowled. "You're really funny," she said.

Takeda shrugged. "They say that laughter is the best medicine."

"Then your face must be curing the world," she hissed, prompting the boys to ooh.

Takeda jeered at her before he wandered to an old tree stump that was serving as the chopping block and gripped an old, heavy ax jutting from the wood. "Get lost, loser," he said. "We have a lot of work to do and we don't need some _girl_ getting in the way and messing things up."

"I'm not just 'some girl,'" she shot back. "I can do anything you guys can do, and better."

"You can't chop wood better," he challenged, casting a knowing smirk at his friends. "Last I checked, there aren't any trees in the North Pole."

"I still know how."

He snorted. "Oh, yeah right. Girls don't know how to chop wood."

The hair on Olivia's neck bristled indignantly. The quickest way to get her to do something was to say she couldn't, and worse, say she couldn't because she was female. "Give me that ax," she snarled, stomping to him and yanking it from his hands. She expected a fight from him, but was glad he didn't offer any, and then she grabbed a piece of wood from the pile. She easily split it with the ax; there _weren't_ any trees growing naturally in Arctika, but her father had taught her how to chop wood when their family went camping in the Rocky Mountains years prior. She triumphantly smirked at Takeda and the others when the smaller pieces of firewood fell to the ground.

"Beginner's luck," he teased. "I bet you can't do that whole wood pile, though."

"Oh, yeah?" she retorted. "Watch me."

Immediately, she set to work splitting the firewood, skillfully hefting the ax over her head and into the pieces, breaking them into smaller chunks that would burn easier. The boys watched and laughed at her while they stacked the new pieces, motivating her to press on, even though she was rapidly beginning to tire. Chopping firewood was _not_ an easy chore. But they already doubted her ability to do it, so she wasn't about to let them see her quit. Blisters began to form on her palms. Some burst and her hands grew slick as they sang in pain. But still she continued, determined to make them eat crow. At last, the pile had all been split.

"I told you so," she panted when she was finished.

Takeda chuckled. "I guess you showed me," he said, winking.

Suddenly, Olivia realized she'd been Tom Sawyered. It was a novice mistake. She should have seen it coming a mile away. Dominic and Tommy tried to play that trick on her often, mostly to get out of cleaning up after Blue, their mother's Seidan wolf. She scowled, even as she inwardly cursed herself for her stupidity, and marched up to him, shoving him into a tree.

"Hey!" he yelped.

"You're dead, you little weasel," she growled as she held up her fist, which now glowed blue with power and frost.

" _Deshi_!" Grandmaster Hasashi's voice boomed through the clearing. Before Olivia had a chance to stand down, he was already yanking her off Takeda by the ear.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" she yelped as she gripped his hand, unable to peel him off while he maneuvered her away from the obnoxious boy.

"What is going on here?" he demanded to know, never releasing his hold on her ear. He glared accusingly at the boys.

"We didn't do anything, Grandmaster," Naoki hastily said as he threw up his hands in deference.

"Then what is wrong with her?" he growled.

Takeda shrugged. "She _is_ Lin Kuei," he said. "Some people would say its upbringing. I think she was just born that way."

Hanzo furiously stared into Olivia's eyes. "What happened?"

The Cryomancer cleared her throat. No way she'd snitch on them. They already had no respect for her as it was. But tattling to teacher? She'd never live it down, and rightfully so.

"Nothing, Grandmaster," she strained to say. He yanked harder on her ear and she squealed, but quickly bit her tongue.

"You have only been here an hour," he growled. "And already, I find you fighting. Do you enjoy conflict and being angry?"

"No, sir," she grunted.

Finally, Hanzo let her go. "I think you must," he countered. "After all, that _is_ why you're here." He shook his head. "If there is one thing you should learn from me, let it be this: holding onto anger is toxic. You think that it's a weapon that attacks the person who harms you. But it's a curved blade, and the damage you do is done to yourself. The best fighter is never angry."

"Yes, sir," she said, looking down at her feet.

"That goes for _all_ of you," the Grandmaster snapped. Then he looked from kid to kid, finally resting his sight on Olivia. "Whenever a _deshi_ breaks the rules, their entire class is punished. This time will be no different. You will all carry this wood to the Temple, and then you will assist the cooks with making our evening meal. You will not, however, partake in it. Instead, you will meet me in the training yard for _kiso tanren_."

The boys started to groan, but Grandmaster Hasashi flashed them all fearsome glares and they silenced themselves immediately. Then he gestured his hand at the pile of wood, and one by one, the teenagers started to gather up armloads. He stood by, watching them like hawks to ensure there was no further squabbling. Olivia sighed, stifling angry tears welling up inside of her, and then scooped several split logs into her arms, carrying them towards the Temple. _Happy Birthday, Olivia_.

* * *

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, he might very well say that ;)**

 **tinkknit, that is the highest compliment anyone can pay me! Thank you so much!**

 **dark s8ter girl, Olivia is definitely a brat...right now ;) Every good character has to undergo a change, and this little girl is gonna go through some huge ones over the course of this story. And Kuai Liang not telling Anya is definitely gonna come back to bite him in the ass later, but you'll see. Hugs, and thanks for commenting!**

 **ROCuevas, thanks!**

 **Guest, I'm sure Olivia appreciates that you're in her corner. I'm going for neither her nor her dad being 100% right or 100% wrong. So, they're both kind of mean to each other right now.**

 **en-lumine, hahaha It _was_ her fault, but I'm glad her reaction stirs some sympathy regardless!**

 **Firebending Master, it's good to see you catching up! I'm glad you're enjoying the journey so far.**

 **iceangelmkx, your guess was still entertaining regardless! That is exactly what I was thinking about with Bi-han. He's still tormented by his shadow self, and he constantly battles with it to stay human.**

 **Guest, you're psychotic and need therapy. I can't condone what you said in your review; it was completely inappropriate and sadistic, not to mention borderline sexist.**


	8. Yes, Grandmaster

**Author's Note: Thanks to Firebending Master for helping me come up with the fight scene for this chapter. :)**

* * *

"Breathe deeply," Grandmaster Hasashi commanded in Japanese, his voice low and soft, and Olivia silently obeyed. "Good," he praised as he watched his students inhale and exhale slowly. "Relax. Silence the thoughts running through your mind."

It had been three weeks since Olivia first came to the Shirai Ryu, and even though her Japanese was gradually improving – the Grandmaster seldom spoke in anything but – she still struggled to decipher what he'd said. It seemed obvious, though; he had gathered her class in a dimly lit room inside the Temple and was currently teaching them to meditate by staring at a single burning candle. So she tried to do what the boys did, and it seemed to be working thus far. Grandmaster Hasashi had yet to reprimand her for doing it wrong.

"Empty your mind," he said, his voice hypnotic and lulling. "Focus on the candle, on the fire. Watch the way it flickers and sways. Do not ask why. Just be."

At first, Olivia's brain was full of random thoughts – how scratchy her uniform was, how the Grandmaster's breath smelled like fish, how dark this room was with just candles lighting it – and they darted around through her mind, leaping from tree branch to tree branch like a bunch of wild monkeys. But as she stared at the glowing fire and listened to her Sensei's gentle commands, she felt her eyes grow heavy with sleep and the thoughts began to fall away to someplace dark and empty. The room around her, the boys, the Grandmaster, the candle…they all faded from her sight, vanishing like ghosts.

 _If you climb into the saddle, you best be ready for the ride_ , a deep voice suddenly drawled through her head like an omen.

" _Deshi!_ " Grandmaster Hasashi's voice barked.

Olivia yelped and jumped simultaneously, immediately wide awake, and she accidently kicked the candle to the rug. Instantly, it caught on fire. Now the boys yelped and scrambled backwards while Hanzo moved forward to smack it out with his hands. The Cryomancer, however, beat him to the punch, and she sprayed towards the base of it with ice like a fire extinguisher. Instantly, the tendrils of flames froze into place, captured in time like a sculpture. With heart thumping wildly in her chest and eyes wild with fear and surprise, she looked at the Grandmaster. He looked at her with wide, stunned eyes too, and then he sighed, shook his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Sorry," she squeaked. "I'm so sorry, Grandmaster."

"It's alright," he finally spoke. "There was no damage done."

"But Sensei," Takeda protested, truly scandalized. "She fell asleep when you were teaching!"

"I didn't mean to!" Olivia exclaimed, shooting the boy a ferocious glare as she rolled onto her knees. "I was just doing what he told me, and then I must've dozed off."

"These things happen when one is first learning to meditate this deeply," the Grandmaster explained. "Especially if they're doing it right. It means she found her way to a state of Zen." He got to his feet and held out a hand for the Cryomancer to take, and when she did, he lifted her to her feet. Then he helped the boys to their feet as well.

"Does that mean I can fall asleep during my training?" Fox asked with a frown.

"Only when you are training to meditate," Hanzo said. "And only at first. Eventually, I expect you all to get to a level where your mind is at peace even when you are conscious."

"Yes, Sensei," the teenagers all said as one.

"Now it is time for our evening meal," he announced. "We will continue this training at a later time. Go."

"Yes, Sensei," they said in unison again.

As they began walking towards the dining room, the Grandmaster gripped Olivia by the shoulder and held her back. "You haven't spoken with your parents since you arrived, _Deshi_ ," he began. "Your mother calls you often, and yet you refuse to answer her."

The Cryomancer shrugged as they resumed walking. "I don't want to talk to my parents, Grandmaster," she said. "Just thinking about them makes me mad at them all over again."

He stiffened. "Tonight, after evening meal, you _will_ call your mother," he said.

She looked up at him. "Will I have to speak to the Grandmaster too?" she wanted to know. Sheer contempt for the man swallowed her heart.

"I don't know, _Deshi_ , but you will answer him as well if he wishes to speak to you," he curtly replied. "And you will treat him with all due respect. Do you understand?"

"Fine," she grumbled.

"What was that?" he barked.

"Yes, Grandmaster," she quickly amended, delivering it in a more respectful tone.

"For that offense, you will write ten pages about the concept of respect, _in Japanese_ ," he said, and Olivia winced at that. "And your kanji will be flawless. If I find fault with your calligraphy, you will do the assignment again as well as something else. It will be due in two days."

The Cryomancer barely stifled her whimper. "Yes, Grandmaster," she said, her tone devoid of all hatred and sarcasm. She hung her head like a whipped dog as they made their way to the dining room.

* * *

After a dinner spent alone at her own table, Grandmaster Hasashi led Olivia to his quarters to use his satellite phone. She had never been in his room before, but she wasn't particularly surprised to find it almost as spartan as the rest of the Temple. As in her room, he had only a cot, a woodstove, and a wardrobe for furniture. But he had mounted two deadly looking katanas to the wall, their handles both like the stinger on a scorpion's tail. As he rummaged through his wardrobe to find the phone, she peered closely at the weapons, fascinated by them, the temptation to touch them overwhelming. She quietly extended her hand towards the sharp blade of one-

"Don't touch that," he hissed. She whirled around, and he was right behind her, scowling. He held out the phone, and she gingerly took it. "Sit," he commanded, now pointing to the cot.

Olivia cleared her throat uncomfortably and dialed her mother's phone while she obeyed and sat on his bed. He stood there before her with arms crossed, watching her intently. He undoubtedly meant to remind her to behave herself, and if she disobeyed him in the slightest, he'd punish her.

"Hello?" her mother finally answered after the fourth ring.

"Hi," she quietly responded, nervously looking up at her Sensei.

"Olivia?" she said, her voice suddenly brightening. "How are you, honey?"

"I'm okay," she said. She glanced up at the Grandmaster again. He hadn't moved an inch.

"Are you learning anything cool?"

"Well, I almost set the Shirai Ryu Temple on fire today learning to meditate," she said. "Got to freeze a fire. That was pretty cool."

There was silence. "What?" her mom squealed a moment later.

"I…Never mind," she sighed. "My Japanese is getting better, slowly but surely. That's pretty much all anyone uses around here, go figure. And my stance and footwork is getting better. The Grandmaster swats us with a bamboo switch if we don't do our stances right. I stopped getting swatted so much."

"Hanzo _hits_ you?" she snarled.

"Not too hard," she said. "Just enough to sting. You don't get swatted if you do it right. So I try hard to do it right. Like I said, I think I'm getting better."

"That's good," she said. "Your dad will love to hear that."

"Uh-huh," she said, stifling the urge to roll her eyes. She didn't really care what he thought.

"I can get him if you want to talk to him," her mom offered.

"No, Mom, that's really okay," she quickly said. "How…how's Sam? She seemed pretty upset when I left."

"She's okay," her mom said, though the disappointment in her voice was painfully obvious. "Better now than she was, but she still misses you. I miss you too, you know."

"I know," she said. Suddenly, there was a painful knot swelling inside her throat. "I…I miss you too, Mom." She paused and inhaled deeply, forcing the ball of tears down into her stomach. She refused to start crying in front of Grandmaster Hasashi, even though the loneliness and the longing suddenly hit her in the gut like a hammer. "But you know, this place isn't so bad. It's much warmer than Arctika. There's definitely a lot more color."

Her mom chuckled. "I bet!" she said. "Are you making a lot of new friends?"

Olivia shook her head and sighed. "No, not really," she said. "Not a single one."

"Why not?" she indignantly replied.

"Because they all hate me," she said.

"What? Why?"

"You know why, Mom," she sighed. "Because of where I'm from. They don't think I belong here and that I'm stupid. I kind of feel stupid, honestly. I feel like I should've paid better attention in languages class when Dad was teaching us to speak Japanese."

More silence. "Well, I'm sorry, honey," she finally said.

"Don't be," she said. "I'm really okay. Better than I would be at home, anyway. At least they don't _pretend_ to care about me." She sniffed and stealthily dabbed a tear from the corner of her eye as she heard her mother inhale tersely. "How is everyone else?"

"Oh, you know," she said, her tone now awkward though still trying to be cool. "Your brothers are trying their hardest to give me gray hair. They built a human catapult and were about to launch Sam into the stratosphere before I caught them and made them stop."

Olivia chuckled. She couldn't believe she felt it, and if anyone ever accused her of it she'd deny it, but she missed the two little monsters. "That sounds like them," she said. "I can't believe they didn't wait for me."

"That's what your Uncle Tomas said," she trailed off. Even through the phone, she heard her mother roll her eyes. Olivia laughed even harder. "Everyone else is doing well," she said. "Doing the same old thing as always." She paused. "Oh, Olivia, your dad just came in. He wants to talk to you. Here he is."

"No, Mom, I-" she protested, but it was too late.

"Hello?" his voice asked a moment later.

"Hello," she said, her voice uncontrollably and immediately tense.

"Olivia?" he asked.

"The one and only," she muttered as she looked away from Grandmaster Hasashi and then rolled her eyes so he couldn't see.

"I didn't think you were ever going to check in," he said.

"Yeah, well, Grandmaster Hasashi made me," she said. She looked up at her Sensei, and he glared at her. She cringed and quickly averted her gaze.

"I want you to check in more," her father said. "I want to know how things are going. Are you learning a lot in Japan?"

"Tons," she said. "Mom can fill you in."

"I'd rather _you_ tell me," he countered, his voice tensing now as well.

"I'd rather not," she drily remarked. "Just suffice to say, I'm doing fine. In fact, I'm better than fine. I don't think I ever want to leave here. There's a lot to do and the work is challenging. The Grandmaster keeps me on my toes all the time. So yeah, I think I'm going to stay."

"And how does Hanzo feel about that?" he said as if he didn't believe her.

Olivia shrugged. "I don't know," she answered truthfully. "I haven't run it by him yet." She glanced up at him again. He was scowling, his amber eyes seemingly on fire. She gulped. "Can I talk to Mom again?" she asked.

There was a heavy, audible sigh on the other end of the line. "Yes," he said. "But I mean it, Olivia. I want you to call and check in more often. Three weeks between contact is unacceptable."

"Well, I'm really busy," she said. "Work, work, work, from dawn until dusk. Plus, I don't think the Grandmaster has an unlimited calling and data plan with this phone of his. Wouldn't want to run up a huge phone bill on him, you know."

"Olivia," he growled, now annoyed.

She sighed. " _Fine_ ," she grumbled. "I'll check in more often."

"Good. Here's your mother."

"Olivia?" she heard Anya's voice a moment later.

"Mom," she sighed, "I have to go now. I just wanted to say goodbye."

Now her mother sighed. "Alright," she said. "You take care. And you call me if you need anything, you hear?"

"I will," she assured her. "Will you tell everyone I said hi and that I'm thinking about them? That I miss them?" She thought of Alex and hoped he, more than anyone, got the message. She thought of the picture he gave to her, which was neatly tucked inside her bra strap so that he could be close to her heart. She looked at it no less than ten times a day. She missed him the most.

"Yeah," she said. "You work hard so you can come home quickly. It's too quiet without you around."

In spite of herself, tears instantly sprang to Olivia's eyes. "I'm doing the best I can," she said. She wiped her eyes and sniffed.

"I know," she gently replied. "You stay strong, and it'll be over before you know it."

"I'll try," she said, and now her voice cracked.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"I'll talk to you soon."

"Goodbye." Olivia sniffed again and pressed the end button on the phone. Then she handed it to Grandmaster Hasashi, whose expression was hard and fearsome.

"You can't stay here forever, _Deshi_ ," he declared. "Sooner or later, you have to go home to your father."

"I don't _have_ a father," she snarled as she got to her feet and wiped her eyes.

"You will show him more respect," he hissed. "He has earned that and more."

"For what?" she challenged, angry fire blooming through her chest. "He dumped me off here. He didn't even want to try. Nope. Just 'Here, Hanzo, fix my daughter for me.' Well, I never _needed_ to be fixed! There was nothing wrong with me. Everyone else said I was a normal kid. But he just couldn't accept that. And here I am, abandoned at the first sign of trouble."

"He has not abandoned you, _Deshi_ ," he countered. "My other pupils have been abandoned. But not you. So you must learn to forgive him."

"I will never forgive him," she growled as she crossed her arms and looked away.

"Only the weak can never forgive," he said.

"Then I'm weak," she said, throwing her arms up in the air.

He frowned and took a step towards her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "You are here, _Deshi_ , to move forward with your life and to grow into something greater," he began. "But the truth is, unless you learn to let go, unless you learn to forgive this situation, unless you learn to forgive _yourself_ , you will never be able to do either of those things. You will be stuck in stasis, burning in your own hell for all eternity. I know this better than anyone."

Olivia looked up at him again. His expression had softened into one of concern. "Have you forgiven Quan Chi for killing your family?" she asked, her voice small but sincere.

The Grandmaster looked taken aback. "I never said it would be easy," he confessed, bristling at her directness. "But you must try."

"You haven't, have you?" she challenged, raising an eyebrow.

Hanzo's hard, black expression had returned. "Quan Chi butchered my wife and son. He killed my entire clan. Friends, family. All gone because he wanted to make _me_ his attack dog. If I have trouble forgiving him, I'm allowed. My reasons are far better than yours. Wouldn't you agree, _Deshi_?"

Olivia didn't answer him. He was right, of course. Her father was merely a pain in her ass that made it his mission in life to hold her back and hold her down. But shipping her off to Japan as a martial arts exchange student was a far cry from having her entire family and clan wiped off the face of the Earth. Her pain could never compare to her new Grandmaster's, and she wasn't so arrogant to presume that it could. She felt a twinge of guilt for insinuating that he had no place to talk about forgiveness. She knew she never could if she were in his shoes.

"This anger you have for your father is poisoning you," he said with a sigh. "It does not have to be this way."

"I never _wanted_ it to be this way," she responded as that painful knot lodged inside her throat again. She blinked back tears and looked away in shame. "I need to go help my classmates sweep the training room before bedtime, Grandmaster," she quickly changed the subject, her voice trying hard to crack.

"They will wait," he firmly said. "You need to face this, _Deshi_. You've run away from it for too long."

"I haven't run away from anything," she argued, still refusing to face him. "I've come to terms with everything. And I've accepted the fact that he's not my father. He's merely my mother's sperm donor."

"I don't believe that you believe that."

"Well, I do," she said defiantly, now bravely staring at him.

"You dishonor your family by saying things like that," he frowned, shaking his head in disappointment. "Do you know the things your father has done for Earthrealm? The sacrifices he's made?"

"I don't care," she snapped. "His achievements have nothing to do with me. He's done nothing for me."

The Grandmaster scowled at her. "You have too much pride. Tomorrow, you will clean out the pig pens to teach you humility."

Olivia's nose wrinkled in disgust at the mere thought of cleaning up pig shit, but she knew better than to whine. If she whined, Grandmaster Hasashi would add even _more_ punishments to her original sentence, and she already had a mountain of things to do just because of this one phone call to her parents. "Yes, Grandmaster," she said respectfully.

"Go help your classmates finish their chores," he ordered. "And then begin writing your report."

"Yes, Grandmaster," she sighed before she slid through the door to his room.

* * *

The following day, Olivia was knee-deep in pig manure, working hard to shovel it into a wheelbarrow that she then wheeled to the compost pile near the wood-chopping clearing a half-mile away. After winter, it would be used to fertilize the vegetable gardens in the spring. It was a long, tedious process because she was the only one working, and she only had one wheelbarrow. By the time midday rolled around, her brilliant yellow sash was nearly black from filth and her entire uniform soaked in sweat, and she was scarcely even half done.

Panting hard, thirsty for water, she leaned her shovel against the pen wall and took a swig from a canteen, enjoying the way the icy liquid lubricated her throat. Then she pulled her picture of Alex from her bra and studied it for what seemed like the millionth time since she'd been with the Shirai Ryu. She wondered what he was doing right this moment. Perhaps he and Morgan and Gat and Bay were in class helping the Masters teach the younger students. Or maybe he was working in the kitchens as he sometimes liked to do. Or maybe he was just sleeping. Olivia shook her head. That was probably it. The Elite who worked guard duty on the night shift were allowed to sleep until one in the afternoon, and Alex usually did. She chuckled to herself as she imagined him snoring and drooling the day away.

"What are you doing?" a voice broke through her thoughts and made her jump. She whirled around and saw Takeda and Fox coming into the pig pen. "I don't think the Grandmaster would approve of you taking a break from your punishment," Takeda chided.

"Go away," she scowled.

"What exactly _did_ you do to wind up doing this?" Fox teased. "You really must've made the Grandmaster mad if he's making you do this by yourself. This is usually a two or three person job."

She scowled at them. "If you must know, it's because I was disrespectful to my father." She shook her head and gently kicked the fence. "I hate him. He's why I'm here."

Takeda's mocking grin fell and his expression softened into sympathy. "Mine dumped me here too," he said. "He's a loser, though. A deadbeat. I think I'm better off with Grandmaster Hasashi."

Olivia scoffed. "Yeah, well, the Grandmaster thinks I should appreciate my father more," she grumbled. "That I have no right to be angry. I disagreed, and now I'm here shoveling shit." She set her picture down on the fencepost and took another drink from her canteen. Immediately, Fox snatched it.

"Ooooh," he teased. "Someone's got a boyfriend!"

"Give that back!" she yelled as she reached for it, but Fox quickly shoved it into Takeda's hands.

The Asian boy studied it for a second but then held it behind his back as Olivia lunged forward to grab it from him. "Spill it," he laughed, expertly avoiding her outstretched hands. "Who is he?"

"None of your business!" she cried. "Give it back to me! It doesn't belong to you!"

He laughed and thrust it back into Fox's hands. He, in turn, scurried up the fence to dangle it above the Cryomancer's head. She snarled and jumped for it, but every time she got close, he pulled it away. "Oh, you've got to be quicker than that!" he jeered while Takeda laughed. He tossed it towards his friend, but the wind shear caught it, slowing and altering its trajectory. It floated downward into the pig manure, and both he and Olivia pounced on it at the same time.

"That's _mine_!" she furiously screeched as they both grabbed an edge. Takeda yanked his arm back hard, and suddenly, the picture ripped in half.

At first, both teenagers looked at their halves in surprise. Then he looked at her in panic. "I'm sorry," he quickly apologized, but it was too late. Olivia's expression had dropped into a murderous scowl, and she only saw the world in shades of red.

"You little jerk!" she yelled a second before she tackled him at his waist.

Stunned, he laid there in the manure for a long moment as she pummeled his face, driving his head deeper into the muck, and then he lifted his feet into her torso and threw her over his head into the fence. Olivia slid to the ground, her chest mildly aching, as Takeda frantically looked for a weapon and found her wooden shovel. It was a pathetic choice. Slowly, she commanded the air around her arm and palm to tighten, and it obeyed. Immediately, a kori sword came into being and sparkled dangerously in the sunlight.

"Whoa, whoa!" Fox cried. "It's just a picture!"

Olivia didn't respond. Instead, without looking at him, she lifted her free hand towards the spot he was sitting and let a ball of ice fly towards the fence. The wood crackled and popped when it hit, and it froze quickly, soon shattering beneath Fox's weight. He tumbled outside of the pig pen, hitting the ground hard. She didn't even care when he scrambled to his feet and bolted towards the Temple. He undoubtedly meant to tattle on her.

"I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that your father is Grandmaster Sub-Zero, isn't he?" Takeda nervously spoke as he eyed the kori sword in fear.

"That's right," she snarled as she stalked towards him.

Takeda backed away. "Look, I'm sorry," he said. "I really am. I didn't mean for that to happen."

"Then you shouldn't have done what you did," she hissed.

"It was just a joke!"

"It was hilarious," she replied. "Just like all the other jokes you've played on me since I've gotten here. Getting me to chop all that wood. Putting a frog in my bowl of rice. Dumping water on my lap so it looked like I peed my pants."

And with that, she swung her sword at Takeda's head, her rage blessedly devouring her, steering her every movement. He blocked, but she countered, and they traded blows as if they were in a fight to the death. And perhaps they were. Olivia was too angry to think about it. She had no idea what she'd do if she connected to him, even just once. All that mattered was the effort. She wanted to hurt him just like he'd hurt her. He'd been nothing but mean to her since she'd arrived, and if Grandmaster Hasashi wouldn't punish him for it, then _she_ would. The world was drowning in red, and it was a glorious feeling that she never wanted to end.

Soon, Olivia chopped downward towards his head as if she wielded an ax rather than a sword, and he immediately threw up his shovel, bracing it with both hands to block it. The kori sword easily slid through the wood, however, and it snapped into two separate pieces that splintered at the ends. Though Takeda deflected her blow, the tip of the sword still lightly kissed his cheek and carved a pristine line across it diagonally. Blood instantly bloomed through the incision. It dribbled down his face and onto his shit-stained clothes.

He wasted no time thinking about it, and instead attacked her with the two pieces of wood as if they were a set of escrima sticks. Acting quickly, Olivia fought the two separate weapons with her one, but soon tired of that and formed another kori sword in her opposite hand. Once more, the teenagers traded blows, both of them equally matched, neither getting the upper hand on the other. Finally, though, as he blocked another overhead strike, she saw her opportunity and she kicked him in the nuts as hard as she could.

Takeda toppled to the ground, immediately dropping his shovel pieces, his face turning purple. He made no sound, and Olivia vaguely understood it was because he couldn't breathe. Snarling, she raised a single sword to strike. And then a strange noise whipped through the air. A split second later, a chain wrapped around her wrist and yanked her backwards into the fence. It bit into her tendons and forced her to release her sword. It fell onto the ground and shattered completely.

"Drop the other one," she heard Grandmaster Hasashi growl behind her. His voice startled some sense into her, and she abruptly realized she meant to _kill_ Takeda over his incessant bullying. It frightened her, and she instantly obeyed.

The Grandmaster retracted the chain of his kunai spear and then he stalked into the pig pen, glowering at both teenagers. He did not bother to help Takeda to his feet; he was too angry. His face was shaded in hues of scarlet, and Olivia saw one of the veins on his forehead pulsating through his skin. His fists were rigidly clenched at his sides. He looked from him to her and back again.

"Get over here!" he growled, his voice dark and deep, and both of them promptly stepped to him. He looked to the Cryomancer for an explanation. "What is going on?" he demanded to know.

She, by this point, was crying. Not out of fear or of sorrow, but of _anger_. Tears dripped down her hot cheeks, cutting tracks through the filth that stained them. She searched inside her for an answer for her Grandmaster, and though she found one immediately, her throat constricted around the words, forcing them back into her gut. In frustration, she shook her head and looked down, though she was blinded.

Hanzo looked to Takeda, who looked down as well. "It was my fault, Grandmaster," he admitted. "I ripped her picture."

The Grandmaster now looked at the ground to the spot where Takeda pointed, where the two halves of Olivia's picture were stuck in the manure. He inhaled deeply to steady his own fury, and then he knelt down, picking up the pieces. He examined them for a minute and carefully wiped off the filth to get a better look. Then he fitted them together like the pieces of a puzzle in order to achieve greater context. When he was satisfied, he sighed and handed them to her.

"Fox and I were just messing around," Takeda said.

"You _took_ my picture!" she hissed, unable to contain her fury. "You stole it from me. And then you ripped it!" She was just this side of hysterical now, the frustration with her father, her circumstance, this culture shock, and Takeda all spilling from her eyes like a fountain. She was sobbing now, but she didn't care that the Grandmaster saw it. "I miss him so much, and you went and ruined the one thing that made me feel like he was here with me."

"I'm _sorry_ ," he said more urgently.

"Go to hell," she growled.

"That's enough," the Grandmaster snapped, and both teenagers immediately stopped squabbling. He crossed his arms. "Takeda, you and Fox will finish Olivia's chore."

"Yes, Sensei," he said, dejected.

"And _you_ , Olivia, will come with me," he said to the Cryomancer. " _After_ you bathe yourself." He wrinkled his nose at the smell of her. "I wish to speak with you about this."

She nodded. "Yes, Grandmaster."

* * *

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, I don't know if that's true. The Shaolin monks start their day pretty early in the morning, and they train, do chores, and study pretty much non-stop all day. In fact, when I was doing research on various temples' daily routine, the Shaolin were the ones I ultimately used when figuring out how to structure life in the Shirai Ryu.**

 **ROCuevas, thanks!**

 **DarkAssassin15, you're right, he and Tomas did a lot of things as kids that he'd flip out about if Olivia did. It's kind of like parents who smoked pot as teenagers now don't want their kids doing what they did. She _is_ probably going to resent him for sending her away. Parents often unintentionally scar their kids. But the important thing is that she learns to move on from her resentment. And that's what I'm working towards in this story. Hopefully, it becomes apparent as this story wears on. **

**Obelisk of Light, haha thanks. I'm trying to channel Hanzo's character as I saw it in the comic. Takeda is pretty laid back, and right now, he's something of a bully. But he, like Olivia, is gonna be singing a different tune when they get to Outworld. I agree wholeheartedly; danger is what Olivia needs to give her a reality check. Thankfully, she'll get just that ;)**

 **Firebending Master, I'm glad you enjoyed Bi-han as the crazy uncle giving sage advice. But I'm not sure I understand your reference to Hillary Swank's _Karate Kid_. **

**Westcoast Witchdoctor, thank you so much and welcome to my stories! Definitely. Kuai Liang needs to chill out (pun intended) and Olivia needs to humble herself for sure.**

 **en-lumine, I think you've had enough coffee! LOL I'm glad you thought Hanzo was so in-character. He's a hard-ass, but Olivia is definitely gonna come to respect him. Takeda's gonna take a little more work, though. He's kind of a shithead at first.**

 **PunkRoseBlitz, oh, no worries, I know people have lives and things to do. Takeda and Fox aren't _really_ sexist, they just pulled that card to get her riled up so they could trick her into chopping the wood for them. But yeah, when I was writing Hanzo - when I write any of the characters, really - I try hard to hear what they say and then deliver it in the same way that I perceive it. I'm glad to know it's coming through. **

**iceangelmkx, totally. He doesn't play around at all. He's working on Olivia, and he'll eventually get through. But like you observed, it'll take some time.**


	9. The Attack on the Shirai Ryu

**Author's Note: I just wanted to thank en-lumine for helping me brainstorm about Scorpion and Olivia's conversation. Thank you so much, friend! :)**

* * *

It was not difficult to tell that Reiko had crossed between worlds. A crisp, stark chill hung in the air as golden sunlight filtered through trees in hues, casting shadows of leaves and branches on the forest floor. Birds flew overhead in large flocks unheard of in Outworld, and animals chattered and cried from hiding spots near him. Life here was old, pure, untouched by corruption, reminiscent of Edenia before the Fall. It was lovely here, and peaceful. These humans knew not what they had. He inhaled deeply, taking in as much of the smoky autumn air as he could.

Reiko, Skarlet, and his Tarkatan horde had emerged from the emptiness between worlds at the very edges of Scorpion's domain. The demon wraith would allow nobody to materialize any closer, and any attempt to do so would merely announce the battalion's sudden arrival in Earthrealm. The General had used all the magic in his power to calculate the best possible spot to cross over while avoiding detection from the legendary warrior _or_ the god, Raiden, and from there they would travel on foot. Quan Chi's former pet wouldn't likely notice them that way.

From there, under skies as blue as an ocean, Reiko and his soldiers had quietly traveled through the meandering canyons of jagged rock that ran between the mountains' roots. For long hours, he had marched at the head of the army tirelessly, carving footprints into the dark, rich soil. Slowly, a grim overcast formed and began to suggest the fall of twilight – except, Reiko realized almost immediately, that what he saw was a storm heralding the break of day. Spreading in all directions like an oily stain came a roiling mass blacker and heavier than the heart of the Netherrealm. Clouds. Towering, overwhelming, stretching across the span of the horizon.

"Is it Raiden, my Lord?" Skarlet asked in her scratchy voice as Reiko paused to admire the approaching storm's beauty. Her eyes seemed indifferent, her posture unworried.

He shook his head. "No," he simply said. Even from such a distance, the occasional sharp crash of thunder rumbled and shook the ground. Flashes of searing light silhouetted the trees and the mountains, or the occasional figure down in the canyon or high atop the towering ridgeline. It was mesmerizing.

Reiko then ordered Scourge, his raven, into the air to scout, though he knew that the growing darkness and impending rain might prevent his companion from observing much of use. The bird soon proved him wrong; through the creature's sight, he saw that the Shirai Ryu Temple was close, just over the next ridge.

"We're very close now," he reported as the heavy raindrops began to fall. He looked to the sky and let the cold water fall on his sweaty face. It trickled through his hair and ran inside his armor. Then he looked at Skarlet, his lieutenant, and the Tarkatans. "Remember, you are to find the boy, Takeda," he said. "Use any means you have to capture him, but do not harm him. You'll answer to me if you do."

"And what of Scorpion?" the red-clad warrior asked.

"I will handle him," he replied as he started walking again. "Someone must divert his attention," he then muttered under his breath.

* * *

"You're struggling, _Deshi_ ," the Grandmaster spoke as he motioned for the freshly bathed teenager to sit on her knees before him on the forest floor. "I can see it every day."

"I think I'm doing better," Olivia argued. "My skills as a warrior are improving and I'm starting to gain some fluency in Japan-"

"I mean you're struggling to fit in here," he interrupted, holding up his hand.

She shrugged. "I fit in just fine," she said.

Hanzo sighed. Stubborn, just like her father. "You told your mother that you've made no friends here," he reminded her.

She looked down and uncomfortably played with a red leaf. "I'm not here to make friends," she said in a much smaller voice. "I'm here to learn. I'm here to get through this as quickly as I can so I can go home and graduate."

"Don't you realize that is where you are going wrong?" he asked, crossing his arms and looking at her expectantly. "This isn't meant to be a race. You're only doing yourself a disservice by making it one."

She looked at him and raised a quizzical eyebrow. "I don't understand."

"Take your time to learn to do things right," he said. "Let go of the past and where you came from, and let go of the future and where you are going. Focus on the present and what you are doing _now_." He gazed at her pointedly. "And make friends here. They will make your experience here easier. You are only making it difficult for yourself by isolating yourself."

Anger flashed in her blue eyes. "How am I supposed to do that?" she demanded to know. "Everyone here treats me like I don't belong. And Takeda – he's nothing but a bully."

"He was wrong to take your picture," Hanzo conceded. "He was wrong to tease you. And I will be speaking to him. It is obvious the boy in that picture means much to you, and that picture reminds you of him and your home."

Olivia looked up at him in surprise, blinking back tears. "Yeah," she said, nodding.

"But _you_ were wrong to attack him," he firmly said. "You were out of control when I found you and stopped you. With powers like yours, such recklessness is a trait you can't afford. People will die. I'm certain your father has taught you that, and I have been striving to as well. You _must_ learn control, _Deshi_." He shook his head in disgust. "What Takeda did was not right. But it was not worth his death."

"I know," she whimpered, wiping tears from her cheeks. "I'm sorry. He's just been so mean to me and this place has been such hell that I snapped."

"Hell is not so much a place as it is a frame of mind," he told her. "It's being alone. Constantly alone. The other figures in it that cross one's path are mere ghosts. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is just always alone." Sympathetically, he looked into her eyes. "It doesn't have to be that way, _Deshi_. You are not so far gone that you can never return. The Shirai Ryu is your family now. Treat them as if they are your brothers."

"But I don't get along with my brothers," she protested.

Hanzo inwardly frowned at that, but maintained his neutral mask. "Perhaps," he said. "But if someone outside of your family threatened them, would you not defend them?"

Olivia shrugged and looked down. "I guess so." She sighed. "My mother jokes about how I can be mean to them all I want, but the minute someone else messes with them, I go into beast mode to fight for them. It's become something of a running joke in my family. 'Olivia hates her siblings but God help anyone else who screws with them.'"

"That is how I want you to think of the Shirai Ryu," he instructed. "Defend them with your life, and they will defend you with theirs."

"Takeda won't," she grumbled.

"Yes, he will," he defended. "He is troubled, yes, but he is a good warrior and even better young man. I hope, in time, you'll be able to see it. But there are things about him which you don't understand. He feels immense pain, _Deshi_. He carries it inside of him always. And sometimes, it prompts him to make terrible choices."

Olivia cocked her head at him. "Why?" she asked. "What happened to him?"

"His mother died years ago," he answered. "Circumstances what they were, his father brought him here to live in safety and train."

"So he abandoned him?"

Hanzo shook his head no. "That is not exactly the case," he told her. "But Takeda believes with all of his heart that it is, and so he hates his father. He maintains that he will never forgive him for what he did, and this hatred poisons him and destroys him a little more each day. I am working hard to help him overcome that, but it is…difficult." He looked her in the eyes. "Whenever you two butt heads, _Deshi_ , I hope that you remember he is fighting a war inside of him, and you have compassion for him. After all, you two are more alike than you think."

Thunder rumbled in the distance then, prompting both teacher and student to look up. "It looks like rain," Olivia remarked as they saw a forked branch of lightning race to the earth.

"Yes," Hanzo agreed. "Come, _Deshi_. Let us return to the Temple. It is close to evening meal anyway."

* * *

The storm had arrived in all its glory as Reiko and his army arrived at the Shirai Ryu Temple. Just ahead, almost undetectable against the natural jagged lines and projections of the canyon walls, a great tower of worked stone jutted from the depths. It rose overhead, impossibly, unreasonably straight and sheer, so that any glance up into the blackened sky felt like a dizzying drop into infinite depths. Seemingly natural bulges and niches served, to all purposes, as supporting arches, flying buttresses, embedded columns. The rock glistened with rainwater in what little remained of the light, adding the only sparks of color to what was otherwise a stew of shadowed blacks and rocky grays.

Reiko marched directly for the Temple's entrance – a gaping maw of a cave in the rock face – at a steady, calculated pace. The few warriors that stood in his way were clustered together uncertainly within the hollow, drifting slowly forward, focused on guarding the oncoming attack. Reiko swept through them without slowing, his scythe cutting them down or hurling them aside, and not one managed a single stroke of their weapons in return.

* * *

Olivia lay on her back on her cot, staring at the two halves of her ripped picture, contemplating what the Grandmaster had told her before supper, thinking about Takeda and looking for any similarities to him. There were the obvious ones, she realized – their fathers had both dumped them with Scorpion because they didn't want to deal with them. They were both exceptionally good martial artists; Olivia grudgingly conceded that whenever she watched her nemesis train, he frequently blew her mind with his skills. And when they sparred, it was difficult to get the upper hand with him. But – she reminded herself – she was the only one who could. Takeda dropped their classmates like they were nothing within the first few seconds of the match. At least she could hold her own against him.

Beyond those things, though, she couldn't quite see what similarities the Grandmaster referred to. Personality-wise, they were two entirely different people. She'd never pick on a new person. Back home, in the Lin Kuei Temple, when the seekers brought in a new orphan from wherever, she tried her best to make them feel welcome and at home. She could only imagine how frightened they'd feel being in a new place with their future unclear. Takeda definitely hadn't done that for her, and in fact, had done everything in his power to make her feel decidedly _unwelcome_.

But, she reminded herself as she heard the Grandmaster's firm voice in her head, bullies usually behave like that because they're hurting inside, and they feel weak and helpless and unloved. For a brief moment, a twinge of pain for Takeda surged through her chest. Maybe the Grandmaster was right. Maybe she _should_ have more compassion for him, especially if he was now her brother, in spirit if not in blood. But then she looked at the ripped picture again, and fire roiled through her blood once more, rekindling her hatred. She would try to take the Grandmaster's advice and make friends with the others, but not him. _Never_ him.

The instant she made the decision, an explosion rocked the Temple to its very foundation and bucked her from her cot onto the cold floor. _What the…_ she silently wondered as she climbed to her feet and made her way into the hallway. A thin cloud of smoke twisted through the hall, prompting her to cough as her eyes watered. Even from her room far from the other living areas, the occasional sharp crash or ringing clatter of battle touched her ears. The temptation to call out to her classmates overwhelmed her, but she quickly stifled it, instantly remembering her father's stern directive never to attract enemy attention in a battle.

At the end of the long hallway and a smattering of additional chambers, Olivia finally reached the main entrance. The hazy cavern sprawled out before her, itself large enough to hold a small village. The wall gaped open at the far end, and it was dark and raining outside, but the occasional flash of lightning illuminated the vista of snowcapped peaks in the distance. From atop an array of columns carved into the rock to create the illusion of support, scorpion sculptures loomed, glaring down with ruby eyes.

And what they gazed upon was utter chaos. The chamber swarmed with monstrous creatures with bony blades jutting from their arms and fangs like a sabretooth tiger. Tarkatans. Scores of them pressed forward, attacking the adult warriors who fought to push them back.

Instantly, impulsively, Olivia charged into the back of the formation, a veritable cyclone of kori blades that sprang from her hands of their own accord. Her weapons spun, flesh parted, limbs and torsos and arm blades fell. She moved constantly, dancing through gaps in the line. Each time one of the Tarkatans spun to strike back at whoever had just obliterated the ally beside it, their enemy was already gone, turning someone else into a heap of meat. The sheer press of numbers, however, meant Olivia could only push so far before she was hemmed in as well. When a formidable contingent of the Tarkatans spun around, turning to focus on the new danger from behind, she had no choice but to fall back several steps to reassess.

"No, _Deshi_ , go find your classmates and lead them out!" Grandmaster Hasashi's voice yelled at her. The words were as rough and pitted as the stone of the walls, yet they crossed the chamber clearly. "Get the children out!"

She glanced where his voice came from, and saw him wielding the katanas that hung on his wall as well as the kunai spear that her father often spoke of with great respect. The Tarkatans he battled stood no chance against him, and yet they each attacked him as if they would be the one to take the legendary Scorpion down. He saw her hesitate, and waved her off. Grudgingly, she obeyed and ran off to find the younger students.

* * *

Reiko warily surveyed the ranks of the enemy, his eyes at last resting on his target on the other side of this sea of warriors: Scorpion. He only needed to distract the wraith long enough for Skarlet to accomplish her task. So he marched through the fighters, his eyes fixed solely on the hellspawn. Bedlam swirled all around him, but if he noticed it at all, he gave no indication. Occasionally, one of the Shirai Ryu attacked him, but he anticipated this and ran the poor fool through with his scythe. Gradually, the warriors all gave him greater berth, and they parted around him like water until at last, he reached his target.

"Reiko," the wraith growled in familiarity.

"Scorpion," he responded with no arrogance touching his voice. "I have not seen you in many years."

"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded to know.

The demon, perhaps the most deadly of Quan Chi's minions and the Netherrealm's most notorious warrior, had changed much from the last time Reiko had seen him, nearly twenty years as humans reckon. His face was free of its mask but shrouded by a thick beard, and faint wrinkles and lines had begun to form at the edges of his eyes. But the same fire still burned in his eyes; it was muted, oh yes, and barely smoldering inside the dark, smoky depths. But it was there and begging to be set free. He proudly stood upon a raised dais in the shadow of the cave. Behind him rose a great throne carved from the rock and adorned with uncountable effigies of…

"I see you're still going with scorpions," Reiko observed with the hint of a smirk. "Bold choice."

"Your sarcasm is unwelcome here," he spat. "As are you."

"Pity," he replied as he turned the handle of his scythe over in his hand. "I was hoping to hear more about your fall from Quan Chi's graces."

The wraith tensed perceptibly, but he restrained whatever comment he might have made because Reiko was now leaping through the air towards the wraith with his scythe poised to chop him in half. Scorpion immediately crossed his katanas in front of him to catch the General's attack. Then he swung his arm in a perfect circle, slicing at his opponent's neck, but now it was Reiko's turn to block and counter with another attack of his own. The two traded attacks in this fashion for several long moments, but after perhaps thirty seconds had passed, neither had inflicted any damage on the other.

Finally, though, Reiko landed a blow. He swung his arm at the demon in a diagonal arch and cut cleanly and deeply across Scorpion's chest. Bloody waterfalls cascaded from the wound as he stumbled backwards, groaning in pain. Reiko, who saw his opportunity, then gracefully leapt into a headstand and sprang into the air, flipping towards his opponent and kicking him in the chest with both feet. Scorpion cried out in more pain as he crashed into the throne behind him, eliciting a chorus of startled cries from all of them. Relentlessly, the General charged after him, this time swinging his scythe at his head, and the wraith barely had time to scramble out of the way before the blade hit him.

Angrily, Scorpion then teleported behind Reiko and surprised him with a high roundhouse kick to the face. The Edenian's head snapped back as his body soared into the air. But the demon had no intention of letting him fall without catching him; just as the General rose upward, he had released his kunai spear into his chest, waited until the rope tightened completely, and then yanked him back with a violent tug. Now it was Reiko's turn to cry out in pain, his strong, tattooed face contorting as the blade hooked him and he dropped his scythe.

"Get over here!" the Grandmaster cried inhumanly as he pulled him towards him.

Reiko, on the other hand, had other plans. He only tolerated Scorpion's kunai for a moment before he had summoned his scythe to him and chopped through the rope, instantaneously freeing himself and attacking his enemy. He swung his weapon at the wraith again, but Scorpion anticipated the action and pivoted to the side to block. Quickly, the General stabbed at him in rapid succession with the blunt end of the handle before the other finally leaned back and dodged the next blow. Undeterred, the demon threw another right hook, but this time Reiko curled his bent elbow around his enemy's arm to block him before he slammed his forehead directly into his bearded face. A tooth crumbled to the floor as his head snapped back.

Scorpion groaned slightly as blood spurted from his mouth, but he responded with a shot to the Edenian's gut. Reiko crumpled slightly, but he quickly grabbed the other's slick ponytail and swung him into the crowd. Once more, the nearby warriors yelped as they scrambled out of the way, but the General paid them no mind. Fresh blood trickled from his mouth as Scorpion slumped to the floor with a tired groan. Slow to rise, he eventually met his enemy's stare with his burning amber eyes.

"You never disappoint me," Reiko said to the wraith with a small laugh as he stalked towards him. "But you're still as predictable as always, my old friend." And with that, he kicked him in the temple, knocking him out instantly. And then he thinly smiled. "Let's see if Skarlet has done her job."

* * *

Olivia bolted up the narrow stone staircase that led to the upper levels of the Temple where she knew the children would undoubtedly hide. She tightly gripped a kori sword in her left hand while icy blue fog wafted around her right, and as Tarkatans chased after her through the winding hallways, she whirled around and faced the way she'd come. Ice balls flew, again and again, and those barbaric monsters that'd been stupid enough to follow her froze into solid statues almost instantaneously. With a satisfied nod, the Cryomancer faced forward again and ran on in search of her classmates.

The steps – sturdy but never intended to withstand an all-out siege, especially with Tarkatans shooting energy pulses from their arm blades – crumbled beneath Olivia's tabi boots. She lightly swept up and around, following the curve of the staircase. She threw ice ball after ice ball either into the passage behind her or toward the overlooking balcony above, wherever an enemy might appear. She wasn't killing _all_ of them, certainly, but those she missed were apparently wise enough to take cover rather than try to pursue her further.

It was not particularly defensible, this building, she realized. The balcony opened up into a hallway with multiple rooms to either side. Large open rooms, straight corridors with no good choke points…Clearly, Grandmaster Hasashi had been relying on the Shirai Ryu's fearsome reputation as his primary defense. Perhaps that made sense, given how only a madman would dare attack the clandestine band of warriors in their own home. But that thought gave her pause for concern; who _would_ attack the Temple like this, and what did they want?

As Olivia neared the end of the passageway, she spotted the door at the far end, and Takeda battling a red-clad woman in front of it. The boy was on the losing end of the fight by the looks of it. The woman held his weakened body by the hair as blood streamed from his nose and ears. Olivia took a step towards the pair to intervene, but several Tarkatans leaned abruptly out of the last two doorways on either side of the hall, sending a barrage of energy pulses from their arm blades in her direction. The Cryomancer immediately threw herself to the left. The deadly bombardment whisked overhead, near enough to singe her hair, even as she allowed her fall to throw her clear into the nearest of the empty rooms.

Once inside, she clambered to her feet and snorted indignantly. A quick glance was enough to tell Olivia that the room in which she'd sheltered was bare of anything even remotely useful. It had once been a study of some sort, and was now just a collection of dust and old rice paper. But she had to do _something_. Takeda was out there, and he was in trouble!

 _So what?_ the angry part of her soul hissed at her. _If he's so tough, let him get out of it_.

But she shook her head. No, the Grandmaster was right. He was a jerk, but that red-clad woman had whupped his ass soundly, and he needed her help. However, if she stepped out into the line of fire, she'd die on the spot.

"Well, Dad, I know you probably wouldn't approve of this, but…"

Carefully, she turned her kori sword over in her hand. Then she inhaled deeply, once, twice; her skin began to tingle with gooseflesh as if kissed by a cold breeze, and white patterns of frost formed to her elbows. She was a powerful Cryomancer; her dad had always said so. He chocked it up to the Dragon Medallion's influence over him when she was conceived. So Olivia allowed that strength to settle inside her, suffuse her – and then she called upon the energy and magic that had been her gift since birth.

Crouched low, she bolted into the hall. She moved fast, incredibly so, her long braid streaming out behind her, a brown banner of war. Again, the Tarkatans opened fire, but for a few precious seconds, the Cryomancer was swift enough to weave through the fusillade. She dived forward into a roll, coming up in a crouch directly between the four occupied doorways. The enemies within hesitated, holding their fire lest they overshoot their target and wind up striking one of their fellows, who approached from the back, instead. And that moment of hesitation was all she required.

With a fearsome cry, she drove her kori sword point-first into the floor, channeling a surge of cold energy through the blade. The hallway _rippled_ for an instant, and then an explosion of ice and frost radiated outward, freezing the walls, floor, and ceiling solid for several paces around the Cryomancer. It was more than enough to catch the Tarkatans gathered in the nearby doorways.

One died instantly as the ice completely encapsulated him, but the others just suffered frostbite grievous enough that they could do nothing but cry out as Olivia approached. They did not suffer long, trapped as they were in half a frozen tomb. Ferociously, she swung a new kori sword at their heads and lopped them off one by one. And then she stalked towards the enemy woman and Takeda, who now looked at her with a dazed, loopy expression.

"Let him go!" she demanded.

"Or what, child?" a masculine voice said behind her.

Olivia barely had time to turn around before a heavy fist caught her in the jaw and sent her flying into the wall. Behind her, stone cracked, and she slid to the cold, frozen floor with a groan as pain ripped through her back. The owner of the voice calmly stomped to her and then lifted her a couple feet off the ground with only one hand. Weak, struggling to breathe, she gazed onto a stern, angular face who regarded her in something of amusement. Large, black diamonds had been tattooed around his eyes, and his hair had been slicked back and gathered into a wolf tail just below his crown. He would've been handsome if he hadn't been trying to destroy the Shirai Ryu.

"Your effort was valiant, young one," he praised. "But you will _not_ stand in my way, not when I am close enough to taste victory." He then studied her eyes for a moment, his green eyes intently locked onto hers, before at last he let out a small chuckle.

"What is it, my Lord?" the woman in red asked him. Her voice sounded ill-used and hoarse, as if she had been a lifelong smoker and had only recently kicked the habit.

"Yeah," Olivia said drowsily, "don't hold back. Tell the whole class what's so funny."

He faintly smiled. "This is divine providence, Skarlet," he said to his companion. "This girl is the daughter of the mighty Dragon King, the dragonslayer they call Sub-Zero." He now focused his attention on Olivia once more. "I do believe I have discovered even more leverage against the Earthrealm Champions than I already had. You will join me and your friend, Takeda, in Outworld. You will both be my guests until your parents decide whether or not to help me."

"What?" she yelped as she struggled to get loose, getting a second wind. "I'm not going to Outworld!" Olivia defiantly raised an ice-charged fist to freeze the man solid, but he easily blocked her arm and then quickly pressed a glowing thumb into her third eye. Instantly, everything around her went black.

* * *

 **ROCuevas, thank you :) I hope the fight in _this_ chapter delivered even more. **

**Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, well, they _don't_. I just used them for a reference point to help me decide what the Shirai Ryu routine should be. ;)**

 **Guest, LOL he will, I promise. Alex will be making a return very soon.**

 **MKFighter123, I don't know. Time will tell ;)**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, well, the "Blood Kode Pandemonium" is going to start soon. However, it's only going to loosely follow the comics. And thank you! I try. :)**

 **PunkRoseBlitz, yeah, I was trying to make her conversation with her parents painfully awkward and uncomfortable. As for Hanzo's other students being abandoned, I'm not entirely sure what you meant. I remember that part of their conversation, but when I wrote that, I wanted her - in her teenage mind - to perceive something one way when it was actually something different entirely.**


	10. Good News Travels Fast

**Author's Note: Yes, I know, an update within a day of the last one! What?! LOL Actually, I had half of this written in advance, and I had a day off today, so I was able to finish it quickly. Thank goodness because I go back to work tomorrow. Boo. :p**

 **Anyway, DarkAssassin15 asked me to show some scenes where Anya makes Kuai Liang's life miserable for sending Olivia away without asking, so I started doing that in this chapter. But I want you to know that I'm no means done having Anya give him some much-deserved hell. You all _may_ hate me for something she says to him in this chapter; that's okay, as always, I look forward to your angry emails LOL **

* * *

Kuai Liang hunched over his large oak desk, up to his elbows in ridiculous amounts of bills and invoices, struggling to concentrate on this inane task of balancing the Temple ledger. He found it impossible to work, though, because his attention kept drifting towards the only two picture frames that he kept on his desk, both from his wedding day roughly sixteen years prior. The first, of course, was a close-up of him and Anya right after they'd said their vows, when he'd leaned her back to kiss her, their eyes sparkling as they grinned from ear to ear. The Grandmaster smiled as his eyes looked over that picture. His bride had never looked more beautiful than she did that day, and he – in spite of his reservations about having such a public expression of their love – had never felt happier.

But it was not _that_ picture that called to him, distracting him from his work. It was the second one from his wedding day, this one of Livy – his favorite of her. No more than two years old, she wore a frilly white dressed tied at the waist by a purple silk ribbon, and her dark hair had been curled into loose ringlets and decorated with a little tiara. Kuai Liang knelt on one knee before her and held her hand to his mouth to kiss it. She beamed at him, her smile so much like her mother's. It had been a completely random shot – the photographer had gotten incredibly lucky – but it perfectly captured the love between father and sweet daughter. His little Livy.

Kuai Liang hoped she was well in Japan, and then a pang of guilt exploded through him at the thought. His decision to send her with Hanzo had wounded her terribly. He had seen it in her eyes on her birthday as he'd made his proclamation, that moment when she gazed up at him, determined not to cry. He'd seen it again when Hanzo took her, and had heard it in her voice on the phone, only then it was mingled with pure, unadulterated fury. Livy hated him right now, and in truth, he hated himself a bit as well.

It hadn't helped that Anya would barely speak to him. The only words they'd exchanged in the last few weeks had been strictly business related. If it had nothing to do with the Temple's day-to-day operations, she didn't say it to him. Instead, she buried herself in her work, busying herself in the infirmary with giving the kids their booster shots in between treating the usual training injuries. When she wasn't doing that, she and Kailyn went to Outworld so that she could work with the Hydromancers and train the Healers with her medical knowledge. Every single moment of every single day she avoided him, and she'd even kicked him out of their bed. The first night Livy was gone, he'd come to bed to find Blue stretched out in his space beside his wife.

"Get down, Blue," he had barked at the wolf. "That's my spot."

"Blue, tell him what we think about that," Anya had said to her pet. Instantly, the wolf bared her teeth and snarled at him, forcing him to jump back in surprise.

"This isn't funny, Anya," he hissed. "This is my bed too."

"Oh, well, I decided that it's not," she flippantly chirped, crossing her arms. "Does it bother you that I made such an important decision without consulting you first?"

"You're acting like a child," he snapped. "Call her off before she gets hurt."

"Go sleep on the couch in your office," she shot back.

"I want to sleep in _my_ bed. With _you_."

Anya scoffed at that. "Actually, it seems like you enjoy doing things without me. I should think that sleeping would be no different."

"I mean it, Anya," he growled.

"Blue," she responded, and the wolf pinned her ears back and growled even louder.

The Grandmaster scowled at his wife and her pet, and then shook his head. "Fine," he hissed. "I'll go. But just for tonight. Tomorrow, I _am_ sleeping in here."

Three weeks had passed since then, and he was still couch-surfing in his office. At the thought, he stretched in his chair to alleviate the pain in his aching back. And then he looked at the picture of his daughter again, swimming through memories of her when she was little and was still sweet and innocent and looked at him as if he'd hung the moon and the stars just for her. He missed that. He missed _her_. He sighed.

An unexpected knock on his office door suddenly startled him to attention. Kuai Liang beckoned his visitor to enter, and immediately, he saw Sam's face peek around the door. Whereas Olivia took more after him, the Cryomancer's twelve year old daughter favored Anya more, though her hair only fell to her shoulders and was pulled back into a messy ponytail that had to be clipped at her temples with barrettes.

"What is it, Sam?" he sternly asked her.

The young Hydromancer said nothing, but instead closed the door behind her and fearlessly crossed the length of the room to him. Without invitation, she went around his desk, plopped down on his right knee, and leaned back. Then she audibly sighed.

"Something wrong?" he pointedly asked her.

"No," she said. "I just felt like coming to see you." She paused, inhaling deeply. "Can I have a cell phone?"

Kuai Liang inwardly smiled and then adjusted her stubby ponytail so that it didn't press uncomfortably into his chest. "I'm not having this discussion again, Sam," he said. "You know the rule. You have to be fourteen."

"But why?" she challenged. "You're basing your rule on what was best for Olivia and the boys. But I'm way more mature than they were at my age."

The Grandmaster chuckled. "Oh, really?" he skeptically replied.

"Absolutely," she said. "I've watched all the mistakes they've made, and I've learned from them."

"Good point," he said. "No sale."

"I can show you a pie chart-"

"I said no, Samantha," he told her, his voice firmer now. "Look, I'm really busy right now," he said a second later.

Sam snorted in laughter. "No, you're not," she argued. "You're looking at that picture of you and mom again."

Now it was his turn to laugh. "For your information, Miss, I was actually looking at the picture of Livy." Kuai Liang pinched Sam's side and chuckled as she squealed, squirming.

"I miss her, Daddy," she announced a moment later when she'd calmed down.

Kuai Liang scoffed at that. "I find that hard to believe. You two fight like cats and dogs."

"Kind of like you and Uncle Bi-han, huh?"

"Exactly like we were," he agreed.

Sam thought about it for a while, and then she said, "Yeah, but Olivia _can_ be nice every now and then. Sometimes, she helps me with my homework."

"I didn't know that," the Grandmaster said. That seemed so unlike Livy. She typically regarded her younger siblings like nuisances. He'd always chocked it up to the considerable age difference between them.

"Yeah," Sam replied. "You know what else she does?"

"What?"

"When I'm taking a shower and the mirror gets all foggy, she sneaks in and writes these cool little messages on it for me." His daughter paused. "And after she's done reading a new magazine, she folds down the corners to mark the pages that the thinks I'll like, and then she gives it to me."

"Really?"

Sam hummed yes. "And do you remember the day she got in the fight with Quon?"

"Sadly, I do," he muttered, remembering the way Livy had beat Sektor's son to a pulp, and would've kept going if Tomas hadn't pulled her off him.

"Did she tell you why she did that?"

Kuai Liang shook his head no. "No," he answered, "she completely clammed up. So why don't _you_ tell me, since it sounds like you know more than I realized."

"She keeps secrets pretty well," the girl agreed. "You can tell her anything and she won't say a word to anyone." Sam craned her head around to look at him. "Quon was bullying me," she said as her lavender eyes fixed on his. "He said I was a fat, disgusting Arctic seal, and then he pushed me into a flower pot and spit on me."

"What?" he yelped, suddenly angry. He didn't tolerate bullying, and especially against _his_ children.

"Olivia saw the whole thing," Sam continued. "So she beat him up to teach him a lesson. She said _no one_ was allowed to mess with me but her. And then she made me promise not to say a word about it because she'd already punished him enough."

" _Livy_ did that?" he asked in disbelief. Kuai Liang felt a sudden surge of respect and pride for his oldest daughter.

"She can be pretty cool sometimes," Sam said as she carefully picked up the frame and looked at the picture.

"I suppose you're right," he agreed, now wondering how many other so-called acts of rebellion were actually acts of kindness wrapped up in defiance. He wrapped his arms tightly around Sam, contemplating it. He thought about what his youngest daughter had said and wondered if she knew anything that could help him solve the mystery of why Livy was such a brat anymore. "Do you know what's been bothering her lately?" he asked.

Sam shook her head no. "Maybe Alex and Morgan know."

He sighed. "Maybe," he agreed.

"Daddy?" she began a moment later, her voice suddenly taking on a worried tone.

"Yeah?"

"If I screw up and make a mistake, you're not gonna send me away too, are you?"

She spoke with such earnest frankness that her words stabbed him in the heart. Immediately, he hugged her more tightly to him and kissed her cheek, the guilt overwhelming him.

"No, Sammie, of course not," he reassured her.

"Then why did you send Olivia away?" she demanded to know.

Kuai Liang sighed. "It wasn't to punish her," he rationalized. "I just wanted her to learn a few things."

"Why couldn't _you_ teach her?" she challenged. "You're pretty smart. I don't care what Uncle Tomas says about you."

"Gee, thanks," he smiled, glancing at Livy's photo again. "I _wanted_ to teach her, Sam. I really did. But Livy is at that age when nothing I say matters to her. She's not like you, who still cares what I think. She just doesn't listen to me anymore. So I sent her to train with Grandmaster Hasashi because sometimes, kids will listen to strangers more than they will their own parents. Do you understand?"

Sam shrugged. "I guess so," she said. "But everything feels so messed up now that she's gone."

"What do you mean?"

"For one, Mom is super-mad at you all the time, and I don't like it."

" _That_ is _none_ of your business, young lady," he said sternly. He gently pulled her chin around to make her look at him. "That is between Mom and me. It has nothing to do with you."

"Yes, it does," she argued, tears now forming on her lavender eyes. "This whole thing has messed up our whole family." She slid off his lap and angrily stared at him. "You know what I wish?"

"What?" he asked.

"I wish that everyone would stop fighting. I wish Olivia could come home right now. In fact, I wish you never sent her away in the first place!" Sam scowled and then she stormed away, leaving his office in a huff.

Kuai Liang thought about stopping her and reprimanding her, but then sighed and let her go. She'd only said what he'd been feeling all along. It made him mad that she was with Hanzo, learning new things under his tutelage. He knew it had been his idea, but he didn't know it would cause such a rift in his family and worse, make him feel so terrible inside. He momentarily contemplated bringing Livy home, but then stubbornly dismissed the idea. Now that she was there, let her learn as much as she could from his old friend. He glanced one last time at the picture on his desk, wondering how they'd gotten so far from that place of happiness, and then he shook his head and resumed working on his ledger until the phone on his desk rang.

He sighed and then pressed the speaker button, knowing it was Cyrax on the other end. "What is it?" he curtly asked.

"Grandmaster Hasashi is at Ft. Albany and he is requesting permission to come through the portal to the Lin Kuei Temple," his lieutenant reported. "He says it's urgent that he speak with you."

"What?" Kuai Liang yelped, already on his feet. It must've been extremely important if he'd made the journey from Japan to New York rather than just call. "I'm on my way," he told Cyrax. "Let him through."

In record time, the Cryomancer reached the gate room where he found both Tomas and Kailyn waiting with Anya, who was nervously pacing back and forth in her new set of Spongebob scrubs. Obviously, Cyrax had notified her and the others when he notified him. His wife glanced at him as he approached, her eyes a complicated blend of relief at his presence and hatred for it, and then she angrily looked away as she crossed her arms.

In moments, Hanzo emerged through the portal, and when he saw his old rival, Kuai Liang's heart dropped into his stomach. His yellow and black tunic was sliced in a diagonal cut across his chest, and it was even scorched in spots, and his beard was streaked with drying blood. Bruises marred his face and hands, and his knuckles were split in several different places. When the Grandmaster of the Shirai Ryu spotted him, he immediately threw himself down onto one knee and looked down, the very image of wounded dignity.

"Forgive me," he opened.

"Hanzo, what happened?" he asked slowly, not sure he wanted to know. His thoughts were with Livy, always Livy, _only_ Livy. He couldn't shake that nagging voice inside his head that told him something bad had happened to her. Something was wrong. His friend wouldn't just show up like this, groveling at his feet, unless something was _wrong_.

"There was an attack on my Temple," he solemnly reported. "Eighteen of my warriors have fallen in battle. Many more are wounded."

Anya gasped and threw her hands over her mouth just as Kuai Liang angrily stepped forward and said again, "What _happened_?" he demanded to know. "Where is my daughter? Where is Olivia?"

"I do not know," the Grandmaster admitted before he described how a Tarkatan horde led by an Outworld General unexpectedly attacked the Temple. Finally, as he concluded his story, he looked up at the Cryomancer. "Olivia and Takeda, Kenshi's son, have disappeared," he reported. "They are nowhere to be found in the Temple, in the rubble or elsewhere. I believe they have been taken captive. And I believe that is why the Shirai Ryu Temple was attacked in the first place. Everyone else has been accounted for. Only they are missing."

A hard knot of writhing muscles formed in Kuai Liang's gut, choking the air from his lungs. His face suddenly burned as if he'd been slapped conscious after suffering through a nightmare from which there was no end. His knees weakened, and he started to collapse, but he stubbornly staggered upright, even as he blinked back fearful tears. He looked hopelessly at Tomas, who gazed back at him solemnly.

"Livy," he whispered, thinking of his baby girl. Helpless, undoubtedly afraid, perhaps gravely wounded. Visions of her flashed through his mind then, of her as an infant, cooing softly as he walked with her through the Temple at night, patting her back to comfort her as she suffered through colic, and of him reading stories to her, building snow forts with her, trying hopelessly to fix her hair when her mother had gone away on trips…Those images and thousands more raced through his mind as Hanzo's news unbearably settled on him, but every last one was stained in red. God, this couldn't be happening! Not to _his_ kid. Not to _him_.

But as quickly as his fear and his grief washed over him, it faded, replaced by fury he'd never felt before in his life. His face twisted into an ugly scowl that strained his jaw muscles, and his fists formed into tight, white-knuckled balls; he clenched them so tightly that his short fingernails still managed to cut crescent shaped wedges into his palms.

"Get up," he growled at the still-kneeling Hanzo, and when his friend obeyed him, he looked him directly in the eye. "Who is this Outworld General that took my daughter?" he demanded to know.

"His name is Reiko," he answered. "He has not been seen in many years, not since Shao Kahn was assassinated. Many assumed he had killed himself."

"Well, they assumed wrong," he hissed. "Where would he have taken the children?"

"I don't know," Hanzo confessed. "I would assume Outworld. Reiko still has many loyal followers there, people who believe he is the true heir to the throne."

"Did I miss something?" Tomas asked. "Why would he be the heir to the throne?"

"Reiko is the adopted son of Shao Kahn and Outworld's most decorated General," he explained. "He had more right to it than anyone. But he never came forward to put in his claim. That led everyone to assume he was dead."

"I don't care about Outworld politics," Kuai Liang snapped. "What I care about is getting my daughter home safely." He looked at Tomas. "Begin making preparations. We'll be leaving for Outworld soon."

"You will need help if you are to face General Reiko," Kailyn said in her British accent, speaking up for the first time as she cradled a sobbing Anya in her arms. "The help of a god, to be more specific."

"We don't need that pompous wind-bag's help," Tomas tersely said to her. "I think we can handle this without divine intervention."

"Is that a fact?" she retorted, cocking her head and looking at him. "Then however do you plan to find Kenshi in a timely manner? Even General Blade and her people have trouble keeping track of him, and seldom know where he is. Only Fujin can find him quickly."

"But-"

"She's right," Kuai Liang interrupted Tomas' protest. "Go find Morgan," he ordered Kailyn. "Have her summon him. Kenshi will want to know what's happened."

"Are you sure about that?" the cyber-ninja muttered as he sauntered to his friend with arms crossed. "He _did_ ditch the kid."

"I'm sure," he said. "Now go and get things ready. Plan well. Bring enough stuff for me, you, Hanzo, Kenshi, and Fujin. I don't know how long we're going to be in Outworld."

Tomas obeyed and Kuai Liang and Hanzo started to follow him, but then Anya's voice finally spoke. "I'm going too," she said through her tears.

"No, you're not," he said as he whirled around to face her. Hanzo and Tomas exchanged a look, and then continued down the hallway. He stepped towards her, looking down on her, and scowled.

But Anya did something then that utterly surprised him. She balled up her fist and punched him directly in the jaw. Pain bloomed through his face and he staggered backwards; she had really clocked him hard. But he did not retaliate. Instead, he looked at her in shock. She'd _never_ done that, not once in all the time they'd been married, and they'd had some really good arguments throughout the years. But she did not look sorry, nor did she look afraid. She glared up at him, her eyes blazing like smoldering amethysts.

"I _am_ going," she growled.

"Anya-"

"You sent my baby away _without_ talking to me first," she cut him off. "You always do whatever the hell you want, and this time…" She trailed off as she fought back fresh tears. "This time, I don't even want to _think_ about what could happen because of it. So _I'm_ going to get her. And when and if we get her back, I'm taking her and the other kids, and I am leaving _you_."

Once more, Kuai Liang felt drop-kicked in the stomach. "Anya-"

"I'm _going_ ," she cut off again, and this time stormed down the hallway after Tomas and Hanzo.

* * *

Morgan stood before the Grand Window, fighting hard to hold back her tears of worry for her best friend, acutely aware of everyone's eyes on her as she prepared to summon Fujin. She clutched the pendant he'd given to her many years prior, when she was still just a little girl and was having trouble adjusting to this new place called Earthrealm and a stepfather she didn't particularly like. Fujin, at her mother's frantic behest, had visited her to convince her to chill out, hugged her, and smiled, and then carefully fastened the gold chain around her neck.

"There, my sweet child," he'd told her as he fingered one of her bouncy blond locks. "A beautiful necklace for a beautiful girl." He smiled again. "And if you need me, Morgan, for anything at all, all you have to do is touch this symbol-" he pointed to the depiction of wind hanging from the chain "-think of me, and ask me to come."

"And you'll come?" she had asked in her childish, high voice.

"Every time," he swore.

And he had kept his promise. Anytime Morgan needed him for anything, be it big or small, he'd arrived without fail. She was reserved about using it, though. She didn't want to become the boy who cried wolf in her father's eyes, so she tried hard not to bother him unless it was very important. He was a god, after all, and she was certain that gods must be very busy.

But today was a _damn_ good reason to summon him. Quietly, she wrapped her fingers around the pendant and thought about her father. Specifically, she thought of the time she visited him in the Wind Temple and he'd carried her up to the inverted pagodas where no other mortal had been allowed to see. Comically enough, his main home was a true bachelor pad, cluttered, full of Chinese take-out boxes, and a mountain of video games stacked before a gaming system and 50 inch t.v. They'd spent their visit eating ice cream sundaes and playing a game called _Street Fighter_ , and when she'd returned home, her mother was furious. But she'd had fun with her dad and she didn't care. That remained one of her best memories of him to date. So she thought of it.

And then, under her breath, so quietly that it was virtually inaudible, she said, "Dad, I really need you right now. Please come talk to me."

Immediately, a breeze wafted through the Temple. At first it was gentle, hardly noticeable, but soon it became a full-fledged gust. Vases on nearby pedestals tipped over and wind raced through everyone's hair, pulling it on end. For a moment, a small vortex of air circled through the hall, but it ended as abruptly as it started, and when it was gone, Fujin stood before the group, his face as jovial as ever.

"You rang?" he said cheerfully as Morgan turned to look at him. But when he saw the strained, grief-stricken expression on his only daughter's face, his own face fell into a mask of worry. "Morgan?" he asked, concerned. "What's wrong?"

The Hydromancer tried hard to maintain her composure, but as soon as she saw him standing there, she burst into tears and flew into his arms like she was merely five years old again. "Daddy," she whimpered as she held him tightly. "Something terrible has happened."

* * *

Soaked with sweat even though he was shirtless, Kenshi trekked through the jungle towards his small hut, and the thumps his boots made in the dirt were deafening to his ears. Lost in thoughts of sweet revenge, he scarcely noticed the familiar towering trees and heavy brushwood crowded around the path he walked, nor did he pay attention to the way the forest stretched from its bed of gently swaying grasses toward an azure sky so bright it was almost painful. The gentle gusts of wind were practically unnoticeable, and high, piping bird-song filled the air.

Only for a heartbeat or two, of course. The wildlife fell unnaturally silent at the sudden arrival of someone powerful, and it was this abrupt and eerie stillness that broke the swordsman from his deep, poisonous thoughts about Mavado and the Red Dragon. He immediately yanked Sento from the scabbard tightly strapped to his back, and listened to the voices of his ancestors as they whispered to him the visitor's identity. He cocked his head slightly in the newcomer's direction.

"I haven't seen you in a long time," he spoke. "I didn't expect to see you again."

"Yes, well it _is_ challenging trying to make plans with you," Fujin's calm, almost British voice agreed. "It's almost like you don't want to be found."

"An astute observation," he sarcastically replied.

"Sooner or later, you're going to have to return to the land of the living," the god told him. "This reclusive life is not what she would want for you."

Kenshi bristled at the mention of Suchin. He scowled. "Do _not_ presume to tell me what she would want," he hissed.

"You don't sing much anymore, do you?" he continued without skipping a beat. "I know that would make her sad. She used to love the way you'd sing to her."

"I haven't much felt like it lately," he retorted. "Tell me, old friend. Will _you_ want to sing when Kailyn leaves this world?"

"Probably not," he conceded solemnly. "I will probably destroy half of this world when she passes on, and not even mean to."

"What do you want, Fujin?" he demanded to know, not particularly interested in the Wind God's answer. "If your only purpose is to torment me about Suchin-"

"Actually, I'm here about your son, Takeda," he interrupted.

The Wind God's words caught him off guard. Kenshi's face softened into an expression of confusion, and he took a cautious step backwards. "What about him?"

"Last night, a band of Outworlders attacked the Shirai Ryu Temple," Fujin declared. "Takeda, as well as my cousin, Kuai Liang's, daughter, disappeared in the chaos. We believe that they were kidnapped."

Involuntarily, Kenshi dropped Sento on the ground, and felt as if he'd been yanked back to that night when he'd found Suchin dying in a pool of her own blood. He had been helpless to save her as her voice gurgled a pathetic goodbye, her body rippling with nothing but love for him, and his ached with love for her. Inwardly, he'd screamed as she gradually faded away, and he'd kissed her all over, begging the universe to spare her and take him instead, pleading with it that she didn't deserve to pay for his hubris. It hadn't listened. And the mere sound of her final exhalation ripped the very soul from his body.

Fujin's news about Takeda felt very similar to that.

"But why?" was the only thing Kenshi could think of to say. He tried to ignore the stab of guilt prodding at his heart. He had left his son there because it was safe. Or at least, safer than on the run from the Red Dragon. But was it really?

"We don't yet know," the Wind God replied. "But we do know who led the attack."

"Who?" the swordsman growled.

"Reiko."

Kenshi scowled. He'd never met the great General before, but he'd heard of him when he'd worked undercover with the Red Dragon. He was one of Mavado's most powerful allies. And suddenly, the operative suspected why his son had been taken. The Red Dragon had coerced Reiko into kidnapping Takeda in order to hurt him, for the same reason they had murdered Suchin: they wanted to make him suffer. Immediately, Sento was in his fist and screaming for blood. He hadn't even realized he'd used his powers to summon it.

"When do we leave?" he asked Fujin with a snarl.

* * *

Kuai Liang adjusted his battle uniform one last time as he looked around the room at those who had gathered for this rescue mission. Fujin looked well as always; healthy and tan, he was the true picture of divine perfection. His hair was considerably shorter nowadays, though it was still as long as Anya's and neatly braided down his back.

Hanzo looked better now too. Anya had used her powers to heal him. But rather than changing into fresh clothes, he stubbornly insisted on donning the ripped and ruined uniform he brought from the Shirai Ryu; yellow was a color of honor, he insisted. He knew it would help restore that honor he lost when the children were kidnapped from under his nose.

To the Cryomancer's right, Kenshi stood in silence. When he'd arrived with Fujin, he'd been filthy and sweaty, but he'd quickly showered and shaved, and now looked far more dignified than he had earlier. But his cheeks were hollow like a corpse, indicating a poor diet. Vaguely, Kuai Liang wondered how much his old friend ate these days. Ever since his love had been murdered, he'd become decidedly antisocial, having gone off the grid in the jungle and making it exceedingly difficult for anyone to find him.

To his left, Tomas and Kailyn said their goodbyes to their younger teenage children, Danika and Connor, the latter of which was named after the Cryomancer. Both kids had honey blond hair like their mother, but shining gray eyes like their father. Morgan stood by them all, and swore to her mother that she'd keep them out of trouble while they were gone. It was a similar conversation to the one Anya was currently having with Tommy, Dom, and Sam.

"Boys, you're the men of the house while I'm away," Kuai Liang interrupted their conversation. Anya immediately hushed herself and stood in terse silence by Blue as he spoke. "Stay out of trouble."

"This sucks," Tommy complained. "We want to come with you."

"Outworld is no place for children," he firmly told his son, the oldest twin. "I don't need to be worrying about keeping you safe while I'm trying to find your sister."

"That's right, she's our _sister_ ," the teenage boy argued. "We want to help find her."

"Daddy, please," Sam whimpered as she wiped tears from her face.

"No," he said with greater urgency. "It isn't safe."

"But Olivia needs us," Dom added. "We're her family."

"And when I find her, I'll tell her how you all had her back," he told them. "But you're not going. And that's the end of it."

All three quieted down. They knew that when he put his foot down, he meant it. But then little Sam looked up at him and said, "Please save her," she begged him as she started to outright cry. "And promise me you and Mom and Blue will come back."

"Sammie-"

"Promise me!" she squealed as she sobbed into his blue and black armor.

Kuai Liang sighed and patted her back reassuringly. "I promise," he said.

"Grandmaster?" a new voice piped up, and when he turned to look at the source, he saw Alexander dressed in his gray Lin Kuei battle armor, toting a black duffel bag, for all intents and purposes looking like he was going to join this company.

"What is it, Elite?" he responded as he narrowed his eyes. Everyone in the room turned to face the twenty year old newcomer.

"I'm coming with you," he said. "I'm going to help you find Olivia."

"No, you're not," he said. "You're staying right here, in the Temple." Kuai Liang started to turn back to his children, but then Alex's persistent voice spoke up again.

"I know why Olivia has been acting like she has," he said.

Instantly, the Cryomancer turned back towards him, his interest immediately piqued. "Oh?"

"Alex, what are you doing?" Tomas asked as he stepped towards his oldest son.

"Something I should've done a long time ago, _Tata_ ," the young warrior confessed as he glanced at his father. "I've kept it a secret because Olivia begged me to, but ever since I found out someone kidnapped her, I just keep thinking that if I'd said something sooner, none of this would've happened. I need to make this right."

"And what exactly is that?" Kuai Liang demanded to know.

"Not until I have your word that you'll let me come help you rescue her," he said.

"And what if I decide to beat it out of you?" he threatened as he took a dangerous step towards his Elite.

" _Můj syn_ , don't play games," Tomas reprimanded. "If you know something, say it."

Alex shuffled his feet and sighed, but then he nervously regarded Kuai Liang. "Olivia and I…we're…together."

"Together?" the Cryomancer repeated.

"Yeah, together," the boy nodded his head. "You know, boyfriend, girlfriend."

"Is that a fact?" he asked angrily, taking another step towards the boy. His fists were now clenched and wreathed in fog.

"Yes, Grandmaster," he replied. "And we've also been…romantic."

"Meaning?"

"Intimate?" he hesitantly squeaked.

Immediately, Tomas wedged himself between his son and his best friend. "Now, Kuai Liang, my _pr̆ítel,_ you need to stay calm," he quickly said, casting a glance at his friend's glowing blue hands and arms. Nervously, he pushed Alex backwards.

"Oh, I'm calm," he retorted. "Why wouldn't I be calm? What father _wouldn't_ be calm when he finds out his best friend's son can't keep it in his pants, and then chooses today of all days to come forward about it?"

"Grandmaster, it's not like that!" Alex exclaimed. "Olivia's my best friend and always has been. And if anything were to happen to her, a part of me would die on the spot."

"Cut the crap," Kuai Liang snapped. "I know how boys like you think. And she wouldn't keep something like that a secret unless she was ashamed of it."

"She _wasn't_ ashamed," the Elite shot back. "She was afraid. Of _you_. And that's why she started acting up like she did. She hated not being able to talk to you about it. I urged her all the time to. I told her to give you the benefit of the doubt. But she didn't trust you." He glanced at his sister. "Morgan, tell him!"

Morgan nodded. "It's true, Grandmaster," she quietly said. "She's griped a lot about you this past year."

"You're not going to Outworld with us," Kuai Liang growled in retort, now seeing red. "When I get back, you and I are going to have a talk. But you are _not_ going with us."

"Yes, he is," Anya snarled as she now stepped forward.

"This is not up for debate," he snapped at her.

"You're right, it's not," she snapped back. "He's coming with us. We'll probably need as much help we can get, and he's old enough and he's one of the Temple's best fighters." She took a taunting step towards him. "And furthermore, I believe him when he says he loves Olivia. Personally, I want someone like that with us. You know, someone who'll stand by her, who'll put his life on the line for her if push comes to shove, and not just ditch her when it becomes convenient."

Kuai Liang narrowed his eyes at her and her obvious insult. " _I_ am the Grandmaster, and I said _no_."

"Blue," she said as she crossed her arms. Instantly, the Seidan wolf was at her side and snarling at him.

He angrily shook his head. He didn't have time for this. Olivia was in trouble, and he needed to get to her quickly. "Fine," he growled. "But you're responsible for whatever goes wrong with him."

"If Alex is going, then I am too," Morgan spoke up. "Olivia's my best friend too."

"Then get your things," Kuai Liang curtly barked at her. He wasn't about to waste another second arguing about this with anyone.

"Well, if they're going, then we are too," Tommy piped up.

"No!" both Kuai Liang and Anya yelled at him. Well, at least she didn't contradict him on that. He furiously shook his head and then stepped towards the portal gate to Ft. Albany. From there, Sonya would open a portal to Outworld. "Let's go," he ordered.

* * *

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, well, again, this story won't follow the comics that closely. Sort of, but not really. But you'll see how Erron comes into it, I promise.**

 **Obelisk of Light, I'm glad you enjoy the way I deal with Hanzo and his students, particularly Olivia. Like I've told you, I always worry I never sound smart enough to make him sound wise, but it makes me happy to know that I'm probably being too hard on myself. Yeah, in an effort to avoid Olivia turning into a Mary Sue, I'm letting her get her ass handed to her by the heavy hitters. She'll have to lose a few times against them before she can win ;)**

 **ROCuevas, thanks, I'll try!**


	11. Welcome to Outworld

Born below the ever cloud-capped peaks that gave the Hidden Mountains their name, the hot wind blew east, out across the Great Sand Hills and the vast desert beyond. Down it blew into Z'Unkarah, the capitol of Outworld, into the fortress-like palace reminiscent of an Aztec pyramid, and beat at the company of Earthrealmers who stood in audience before the Emperor, Kotal Kahn. Hot gusts of air plastered Alexander's clothes to his back. He vaguely wished his armor was lighter or that he'd passed on the second shirt; already, his body was slicked with sweat from the scorching heat, and the metal plates stuck to his body with firm suction. Once, he adjusted the bulk of his armor, and a sickening slurp cut through the air as it peeled off his skin. Startled, the company looked at him, but only the Grandmaster angrily scowled at him before returning his attention to the Emperor.

Alex inwardly sighed. Perhaps confessing to Kuai Liang about him and Olivia had been a stupid move. The Grandmaster was just this side of killing him, and he saw it in the way his blue eyes blazed in cold fury. And if _he_ didn't kill him, Olivia was sure to. Alex had promised to keep their secret at all costs, but not only had he revealed that they were a couple, in his nervousness he had accidentally divulged that they'd slept together too. His girlfriend was _not_ gonna be happy when she found out. But dammit, he reasoned, he _had_ to come rescue her. He wasn't about to stay behind and wait at the Temple for her like some helpless nobody. If that meant incurring her wrath, then so be it. If she didn't like it, she shouldn't have gotten herself kidnapped. He sighed again, this time out loud.

 _I hope she's okay_ , he wistfully thought. God, he didn't know what he'd do if she wasn't. They'd literally grown up together, knew everything there was to know about each other, shared everything two people could share together. He couldn't bear to think their goodbye in her room was the last time he'd ever talk to her. _But no_ , he stubbornly thought as he crept ever-closer to a breakdown, _she's coming back. I'll go get her myself if I have to, but she_ is _coming back_.

As a particularly strong blast of wind tugged at his bag of incendiary devices then, Alex glanced at his father over the top of Morgan's head. He felt a little foolish about wanting to reassure himself that Tomas was still there, but it was that kind of day. The wind howled when it rose, but apart from that, an eerie quiet surrounded the Earthrealmers. The soft rustle of feathers in Kotal Kahn's headdress as he paced sounded loud by comparison. It was decidedly uncomfortable, and Alex was glad for his father's company. He silently edged a little closer to the white-haired man.

"This is disturbing news," Kotal finally declared. He stepped to his throne and sank into it with a discontented sigh.

"Yes," the Grandmaster agreed, his voice taking on a dangerous edge as he crossed his arms. "An unprovoked attack on Earthrealm by Outworld is _quite_ disturbing. It's even more disturbing that this attack was a mere distraction so that this General could kidnap our children without opposition."

The teal-painted Emperor raised an eyebrow at him, just as Fujin warningly said, "Cousin." The Wind God glanced at Kuai Liang and shook his head no while Alex exchanged a worried look with Morgan. He wondered how the Emperor would react to the Grandmaster's tone.

But then, as if he'd missed the Cryomancer's rude accusation, Kotal said, "I give you my word, Dragonslayer, that Reiko acted on his own. And I assure you that he will be brought to justice for his transgressions against Earthrealm."

"Yes, he will," the Grandmaster darkly replied. Alex noticed homicidal rage flash through his blue eyes again. He was furious – and understandably so – that someone had kidnapped Olivia. Nobody messed with his children. _Nobody_. Alex would hate to be Reiko when Kuai Liang got to him.

"Do you have any idea why Reiko would take our children?" Kenshi now asked as he stepped forward, his tone direct and down-to-business.

Kotal Kahn shook his head no, and the feathers in his headdress rustled slightly. "Many months ago, we began to hear whisperings from the west, dark rumors that Reiko had returned from the dead and had begun amassing an army," the Emperor explained. "Soon, the rumors proved true. With his army of Tarkatans and loyal Edenians, he began attacking villages and cities along the western coast, pillaging them, looking for something. We know not what. I sent Erron Black to Reiko's last known battle camp to investigate."

The Emperor paused and shifted in his seat. "I will do all in my power to help you, Dragonslayer," Kotal said. "And you and your company have my leave to freely travel through Outworld to find your children. But I warn you: do not underestimate Reiko. He is as cautious as an old meerkat, as ambitious as a young man, and has the cunning of a fox. My predecessor, Shao Kahn, taught him well."

"What do you mean, Shao Kahn taught him well?" Anya now worriedly asked. She crossed her arms and took a step forward. Alex noted his aunt's red, swollen eyes and painfully tired expression in not just her face, but her entire demeanor. He understood. He felt similarly.

"Reiko did not arbitrarily take your children," he explained. "Like his father before him, he is seldom interested in taking prisoners. There is a greater purpose for their abduction, and whatever that purpose is, it is sure to be diabolical."

"All the more reason to find them and resolve this quickly," Fujin said.

"What is the quickest route to Reiko?" the Grandmaster asked the Emperor.

"He moves around constantly like a soldier ant," Kotal Kahn said. "He never stays in the same place for long. But his last known location was the western border of the desert, due west of here-"

"Fine," Kuai Liang hastily interrupted. "We'll cross the desert and go straight to him."

Kotal Kahn frowned. "That would be unwise, Dragonslayer," he said in his calm, baritone voice. "The desert is grim and foreboding. Light and mirage will trick you and deceive your eyes. The sand does not care if you're made of flesh or stone; it will beat at you on alkali wind and swallow you all the same. And there are deadly creatures out there, and spirits of ancient battles, all of which will drag you under and devour you, leaving nothing of you but bleached bones buried beneath the dunes."

"Then what do you suggest?" he tersely countered as Alex tensed at the description. A thought occurred to him, a terrible thought, and the question hovered on the tip of his tongue.

"Take the Mother Road," he said. "It begins at the southern wall of Z'Unkarah, leads south for several days, veers west for many more, and at last winds north again on the westernmost edge of the desert. It is the safest way to reach Reiko's last known location."

"But what if Reiko's traveled into the desert?" Alex suddenly blurted out, unable to bite his tongue any longer.

"When I want you to speak, Elite, I will ask you to," the Grandmaster snapped at him, casting a furious scowl in his direction.

"It's a valid question," Tomas defended, stepping forward and fearlessly meeting his best friend's gaze. He looked up at Kotal Kahn. "What if he's not on the border? What if he took the children into the desert?"

"Let us pray to the Elder Gods that is not the case," the Emperor asked. "He knows the desert better than even I, and he knows all of its secrets. Finding him will be difficult and dangerous, and defeating him there will be even harder."

"Well, surely there's _someone_ who knows the desert pretty well, someone who can help us," Anya said as she glanced at Kailyn and then Tomas and Hanzo. "A local or something?"

"There _is_ one," Kotal agreed. "He will be your children's best hope if Reiko _has_ ventured into the desert. I will send a message to him at once."

"Who is he?" she wanted to know.

"Erron Black."

* * *

Olivia was not quite sure how long she'd been asleep, but a voice inside her shouted at her to wake up, even though it was a profound struggle. Once, she weakly opened her eyes. The world around her was blurry, the edges of objects fading together like watercolor. Even that much had been a difficult accomplishment to achieve, and she soon lost control of her faculties when heaviness like lead settled on her head and she drifted back to sleep.

Again, more time passed – she wasn't certain how much – before she smelled something savory in her nostrils, and it prompted her to blink her eyes and yawn herself awake. Even in her sleep, she was acutely aware of how hungry she felt. As she returned to consciousness, she realized there was a comfortable bed beneath her, and she was covered by a thin blanket for warmth. Not that she needed it; the air was exceptionally warm, just like a kitchen after someone had been using the oven all day. Confused, she pushed herself upright and looked around. She saw a large tent, medieval in structure, propped up by a large pole in the middle, with eight smaller poles holding up the edges, sheltering her from the ferocious winds beating at the heavy fabric. At one end, a small dinner table covered with steaming plates of food had been erected, and at it sat Takeda and the man who'd attacked the Shirai Ryu Temple.

"I was beginning to wonder if you would sleep the whole day away," the man said as he heaped food onto a plate in front of him. "I thought perhaps the cobalt collar I put on you was far too strong."

Olivia immediately felt her throat in alarm at the declaration. Indeed, a smooth metal choker collar encircled her neck. "What is this for?" she demanded to know.

The man scoffed slightly at that. "Your father never told you what it does?"

"No," she said, puzzled.

"In Outworld, cobalt suppresses your powers over cold and snow, and will cause you immense pain if you try to use them," he distractedly explained as he handed the plate of food to Takeda. "It was a necessary precaution, I'm afraid. You seem young and untested, Olivia, but I have never underestimated a Cryomancer in my life."

In a sudden panic at his explanation, she summoned her powers to the surface, commanding the tiny molecules of condensation in the air around her fists to freeze. And instantly, she realized something was wrong. The cold lashed at her like a viper, and jagged shards of ice shredded backwards through her arms, directly into her head. She shrieked when it hit her brain, chilling it, and she collapsed onto her side on the bed, writhing in pain.

"Olivia!" Takeda yelped. He started to reach for her, but their captor grabbed his arm and held him back.

"That seemed like it hurt," he drily remarked a moment later. "Perhaps when I tell you cobalt suppresses your abilities, you'll heed my warning." Now he looked up at her as she panted to catch her breath, the pounding pain between her eyes slowly receding, and half-smiled as he gestured towards a seat at the table. "Join us, child," he said. "I'm sure you must be hungry."

Olivia tearfully looked from him to Takeda and back again, afraid to join the man who'd kidnapped them and took her powers away. She was frightened of him, and now ached as well. But she was alsohungry, and the food he offered smelled good. Whimpering and sniffing away the tears, she reluctantly slid from the bed, now noticing a blocky manacle fastened around her ankle, and from it the heavy chain bracketed to the floor near the pole. She scowled at it, though it didn't particularly surprise her to see, before she hobbled to the table and took a seat beside her classmate.

"Who are you?" she demanded to know. She wiped the last trace of tears from her face.

"My name is Reiko," he said as he began to heap food onto a plate for her. "I am the High General of Outworld, Commander of the First Army, and son of Shao Kahn."

As soon as he mentioned the long-dead Emperor, Olivia gulped and then exchanged a worried glance with Takeda. Both teenagers knew him well from stories of his invasion of Earthrealm. The Cryomancer's father had been on the front lines in that battle, and had even fought the Emperor himself, almost dying in the exchange. His mere name, even after his death, continued to instill fear. And this man was his son?

"What do you want with us?" she bravely asked, swallowing her fear.

"You _do_ get straight to the point, don't you?" Reiko smiled. "I admire that quality in a person. I've never met him myself, but I'm told your father is the same way." He handed the plate to her, and she gingerly began eating the meat. It was heavy on flavors like garlic and rosemary, but it wasn't unlike her Grammy's roast beef. Smiling in approval, the General now began fixing his own plate. "You two are meant to be leverage," he eventually said.

Olivia nervously raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to hurt us?" she wanted to know.

Reiko scoffed. "Do you want me to?" he countered.

She shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, no," she admitted. "It's just…I always thought a kidnapper would keep me locked in a cage or something with no food or water."

He shook his head in disbelief and began eating his food. "Would you prefer it if I strung you two up naked in the middle of the camp, starving and thirsty, exposed to the elements and the wild birds that would inevitably peck at your skin?"

"No," she said again, now feeling dumb.

"Then don't question my generosity," he reprimanded. "What is that old Earthrealm saying?" he asked a moment later. 'You will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?' In other words, why torture a person when there is no need for it? You don't have the information that I want. There is only one mortal who does: the Earthrealmer called Kenshi."

"Kenshi?" Olivia repeated just as Takeda stiffened beside her. She thought of her father's old friend. She'd only met him once, many years ago when she was a little girl. She barely remembered the blind man, only that he wore a red sash over his eyes and carried a very old katana.

"Yes," he said. "So you see, child, nothing would come from hurting you, and it would almost certainly be counterproductive. You two would be more defiant and desperate to escape, which as futile as it is, would cause me a great many headaches, and Kenshi would probably be less likely to give me what I want."

"So you kidnapped me to use against my father, is that it?" her classmate hissed a moment later. "You're playing it like he's the doting father who doesn't want his son killed? And you kidnapped _her_ to motivate him even more?"

"I believe he will give me the information I seek in order to keep you safe, yes," Reiko answered. He took a drink from his simple gold goblet.

Olivia ignored their exchange, looked at Takeda, and said, "Kenshi's your father?"

"He's no kind of a father to me," he told her, his voice dripping in venom. "I don't even know him. I told you, he's a deadbeat." Now Takeda bitterly scoffed, glaring at Reiko. "You should've done better research, General," he said. "He dumped me off on Grandmaster Hasashi years ago when my mother died. He doesn't care about me. He doesn't even _know_ me. He's not going to tell you anything. Why would he?"

Reiko stared at him impassively. "For your sake, young Takeda, I hope you're wrong," he said. "I would have no further use for you if you're right."

Olivia swallowed hard, not liking the deadly promise lurking beneath his words. "I'm sure he'll tell you whatever you want to know," she hastily said, thinking quickly. "Grandmaster Hasashi was pretty certain that Kenshi cares about Takeda."

"And just _when_ have you two been talking about it?" the boy demanded to know. He glared daggers at her.

"After you decided to rip my picture and he was trying to convince me not to make Takeda-flavored ice cubes," she shot back.

"Oh, not on your best day," he snapped.

"I already almost did," she proudly argued. "If he hadn't stopped me-"

"This is all very enlightening," Reiko interrupted, "but enough." He dangerously scowled at them, and they immediately quit their squabbling. He then looked at the Cryomancer. "And your father, the mighty Dragonslayer himself, left you with Scorpion as well. Interesting."

"Why is that?" she frowned.

"Tell me, how did that make you feel?" he asked, ignoring her question.

Olivia shrugged as her arms crawled with gooseflesh. "I don't know," she reluctantly said.

"You're lying," he told her and then swallowed a sip of wine from his goblet. "It destroyed your faith in him completely. I can see it in your soul."

"Then why'd you bother asking?" she snapped, suddenly angry. It disturbed her, his candor, his ability to look into her soul.

Reiko inhaled deeply and then looked away, into the distance. "It's interesting the things our fathers will do to make us better fit their idea of what we should be," he mused. "My father, for example, was one of those men who could sit in a room and you'd feel it. The simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. For thousands of years, from the moment he first adopted me, he beat me so that I might become stronger. He taught me magic so that I might become stronger. He imparted his gift of strategy and cunning on me so that I might become stronger. Everything he did, he did so that I would become stronger."

He now looked at the teenagers again. "When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, 'my father died, my father died.' My indiscretion embarrassed me, and would have humiliated _him_ , but I couldn't help it. Without Shao Kahn, why was I here? Without him in his palace, why should I go back? Without that pain between us, what was I made of?"

Olivia shifted uncomfortably in her chair, not really knowing what to say to that, and beside her, Takeda simply looked at his hands. But if Reiko was aware of the awkward silence, he didn't show it. Instead, he halfheartedly smiled and said, "I soon found the answers to those questions, and those answers led me to you two, of all people. But Shao Kahn is still with me, in my head, guiding me in all things." He smirked and drank more wine. "It's peculiar. You both still think you can escape from your fathers. But you aren't listening to the voice speaking from your mouth, you don't see how your gestures already mirror his; you don't see him in the way you hold your bodies, or in the way you fight your battles. You don't hear his whisper in your blood. You _are_ your fathers." He drank more wine. "We three are very much alike."

"Hardly," Takeda snapped. "She and I aren't in the business of kidnapping people."

Reiko smirked softly. "What _are_ you in the business of?" he challenged, raising an eyebrow. "A clan such as the Shirai Ryu seems entirely irrelevant to Earthrealm now."

"And what would _you_ know of it?" he demanded to know.

"More than you realize," he said. "I've spent the last several years there, studying your human species."

"Why?" Olivia asked, puzzled.

Reiko smirked. "There is an old dictum: know thine enemy."

"And what did you learn about us?" Takeda hissed.

"Much," he cryptically replied. "I understand now why my father could never overcome you. But I also learned that there is no place for clans such as the Lin Kuei or the Shirai Ryu in your world anymore. Clandestine societies are nothing more than fairy tales told by the old ones to make life seem a little more magical and interesting and dangerous, as if there is a grand purpose to every human's life. Ultimately, though, your world has no use for you." He leaned over the table and looked at Takeda again. "So I ask you again, boy. What are _you_ in the business of? Learning how to play at war you'll never see?"

"Learning how to protect Earthrealm from Outworlders like you," he snapped.

"Edenian, not Outworlder," he corrected. "And you did a brilliant job of that. Tell me, how long _did_ it take Skarlet to defeat you in battle?" he taunted.

Takeda didn't answer. He merely sat in his chair, seething as he looked down at his hands in his lap, prompting Olivia to ask, "What are you going to do with us?"

Reiko leaned back in his chair and took another drink of wine. "You'll stay here as my guests until your parents give me their answer," he answered. "Should they comply, you'll be returned to them without harm. Should they deny me…well, _that_ will be unpleasant."

"And if we escape?" she defiantly asked.

"You're welcome to try," he chuckled. "However, we are surrounded by desert on all sides. The nearest village is several weeks away. You will die in the dunes, and it will be a slow, anguishing demise. At least if I wind up killing you two, I give you my word that it'll be quick and painless." He chuckled as he started eating again. "The desert makes no such promises."

"Is that supposed to scare me?" Olivia hissed, masking her very genuine fear.

Reiko shrugged. "It _should_ ," he said. "In the desert, the only gods are wells, and those are in short supply."

"My Lord," a new voice interrupted, and the red-clad woman, Skarlet, stepped inside the tent. "I have news," she declared from behind her mask.

Reiko politely nodded to the teenagers. "Please excuse me," he said as he got to his feet and joined her. "I will return to check on you both later." He paused and smirked. "I would tell you not to try to escape, but we both know you will. All I can do is strongly discourage it. Remember what happened with the cobalt collar only minutes ago?" He flashed a knowing grin at Olivia and winked. And then, without another word, he and Skarlet left.

Takeda started eating his food as Olivia flopped back in her chair with her arms crossed. "We have to get out of here," she muttered.

"And go where?" he said around a mouthful of meat. "You heard him. We're surrounded by desert. We'll die out there."

"And if your dad doesn't give him what he wants, we're going to die _here_ ," she pointed out.

The Asian teenager flashed a nasty look in her direction. "I thought you said he would," he said. "Sounds like you have just as much faith in him as I do."

"I don't _know_ him," she retorted. "I've only met him once, a very long time ago. I was just bluffing so Reiko wouldn't kill us on the spot, dumbass."

"Yeah, I got that," he drily remarked.

Now Olivia lifted her chained foot onto her lap and examined the lock. Man, if she had her powers, she could easily get out of this. But even the old-fashioned way was a no-go. The manacle was just barely larger than her ankle, and a quick scan of the table and her surroundings revealed nothing she could make a good lock pick from. Still, she grabbed a fork and bent the long prongs into a crude pick. Then she stabbed it into the tumblers. Immediately, she realized the prongs were too fat. This lock required a much more delicate tool to open it.

"Dammit!" she yelled as she threw the fork across the room.

"There's nothing we can do," Takeda passively said. "So you might as well just finish your dinner."

She glared at him. "I don't get you," she snapped. "Where's your fight?"

"I'm smart enough to know when not to," he shot back. "Even if you get free, there is a big-ass desert between here and anyone who can help us. And we have _no_ provisions. We'd die in a day, Olivia."

"You're a coward," she growled and then looked away. "I can't believe I tried to help you."

"Hey, I didn't _ask_ you to help me," he hissed. "I had everything under control."

"Yeah, that's how it looked from my end," she muttered, letting her forehead fall into her palm. The incident with the cobalt collar had set off a migraine, and it was gaining momentum by the second.

They sat in silence for a moment, and then Takeda said, "So why do they call your father 'Dragonslayer'? I've heard them call him that a few times since we've been here."

Olivia sighed and thought about her father. She wondered if he even knew she was missing. And if he did, did he even care? No, she told herself. He'd probably view this as a good learning experience. She'd got herself into this mess when she tried to help Takeda, so she could get herself out. He'd been in plenty of sticky situations before, and he'd gotten through them just fine. The brave warrior, the conquering hero. Sub-Zero.

"Before I was born, my dad killed Onaga, the Dragon King," she bitterly explained, thinking about the stories she'd heard growing up. "He fought alongside _your_ father. He saved your father's life."

"He should have just let him die," the other bitterly remarked.

"Then you wouldn't have been born," she reminded him.

"That wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen to me," he cryptically replied.

Olivia bristled at that, and started to say, "Takeda-" but he interrupted her and said, "Just be quiet about him. He's not worth talking about." So she said nothing, and the two ate their dinner in silence after that.

* * *

"What is it, Skarlet?" Reiko asked as they walked between the various tents in their camp. The sun beat fire upon his back and the glare of the desert blinded him whenever he cast his gaze to the distance. He squinted, and the beads of sweat forming on his brow trickled around his eyebrows onto his sun-kissed cheeks.

"Word from Z'Unkarah," she said. "The Earthrealm Champions have sought an audience with the Emperor. Both Kenshi and Sub-Zero are among their number."

The General smiled at that. "They responded more quickly than I anticipated. Good."

"Good, my Lord?" she quizzically asked. She lifted her unnaturally red eyebrow.

"The children weren't confident that Kenshi would care enough to come," he said as he glanced away from her at a group of Tarkatans roasting meat on a spit. "Not only has he personally come to rescue him, he has done so swiftly. He _will_ give me the location of Shinnok's amulet. I am certain of it now."

"Fujin is with them," she reported. "He will stop Kenshi."

"He will try," Reiko agreed. "But he will fail. And he will understand. He is also a father." He looked back at her. "Send the Earthrealm Champions my regards," he said and then smiled as she nodded her understanding. "And make preparations to move the camp further into the desert. I want Kenshi to know that for all his supernatural awareness, even he can't save his son from it without my blessing."

* * *

 **Guest, LOL I told you all Alex _would_ be back. I'm so glad you like him. It's always rewarding when people embrace one of my OCs. XD**

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, indeed they have bitten him in the ass. I don't know about an MKX story, though. It'll be a while before I even think about it.**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, he _may_ warm up to Alex and Livy, he may not. ;)**

 **Firebending Master, thank you for the multiple reviews. Reiko is like Death in _Darksiders 2_ because he uses a scythe and is a smartass, but otherwise, I think the similarities end. Maybe. LOL Glad you liked the _Street Fighter_ reference. I thought it was kind of meta :D**

 **ROCuevas, thank you :)**

 **Obelisk of Light, I just imagined how I'd feel if one of my babies were kidnapped, and I pulled the parents' reactions from that. Oh, Fujin's bachelor's pad...That was one where I thought you'd either really really love it, or really really hate it. But I'd hoped you'd find the thought of him playing _Street Fighter_ on his gaming console funny. Glad you enjoyed it. I have some ideas for Fujin and Morgan, but I don't want to spoil the surprise! **

**iceangelmkx, it's okay. You've got a life. It's no problem. All that matters is that you're here now :) Thank you for the multiple reviews. Anya's reaction is definitely a product of being so damn mad at him. It's one of those things where she said something in anger that she didn't mean. Of course, she believes she means it, so we'll see what comes of that. Kenshi's definitely been in pain since Suchin's death, and he's going to be much darker in this story than he was in _The Curse of the Dragon Medallion_. I have Kenshi and Takeda's moment already locked inside my head, but that's a ways off and I'm not gonna spoil it for you ;) **

**tinkknit, glad to have you, and thank you so much for your kind praise. :) I find that even the darkest moments have _some_ humorous ones mixed in, and that's what I try to incorporate into my writing style. Olivia will definitely hit rock bottom before she climbs out of this hole she's in. Erron's gonna help with that, methinks ;) **

**en-lumine, here's some more tissues! I was worried that Kenshi's scene with Fujin would be lame sauce because I kept envisioning your treatment of the same material in my head and I kept coming up short. But I'm glad you liked it. I'm also glad I caught you off guard by Anya's declaration. Frankly, I was expecting more people to be like, "Noooooo!" LOL**


	12. Escape

**Author's Note: Hi, all, I'm sorry for the delayed update. I had a lot of drama going on and it was impossible to write. The latest, of course, is that my mom has a blood clot in her lung and her pancreas has failed so she now has diabetes. Oh, and on top of all that, she probably has leukemia in addition to the pancreatic cancer. So, yeah. I've been sick with strep throat since last week and today I was diagnosed with walking pneumonia. This, while my sister-in-law has pneumonia pneumonia and is in the ICU trying to recover from it. Anyway, I hope you understand why this update is late coming, and, if I'm being honest, probably pretty shitty. :p**

 **To all my friends who've messaged me, I haven't forgotten about you, I'm just having issues. I'll try to reply within the next day or two, though. Scout's honor.**

 **I want to give a quick shout-out to Hell-on-Training-Wheels for giving me some ideas about Erron Black. Thank you, miss :)**

* * *

All the loyal Edenians and Tarkatans were moving Reiko's camp deeper into the desert, and the gunslinger moved with them. Annoyance nipped at Erron's heels like a hungry wolf, even as he seamlessly blended into the enemy's number with an Edenian's cloak, an Edenian he'd quietly killed with his hunting knife. He'd stashed the body in an old snake pit where nobody'd be likely to find it. He wasn't happy to be chasing after two kids, even if the Kahn was paying him handsomely to do so, and he was even less thrilled that Reiko'd uprooted everyone to move them into the desert. When he'd rescued the rugrats, it'd be that much harder to smuggle them safely out of that hellhole.

 _At least I've got an idea what the damned fool is after_ , he told himself as he cautiously slid into the shadows of a cart hauling Reiko's tent pieces. Days ago, he'd eavesdropped on Reiko and his top lieutenant, Skarlet as they'd discussed Shinnok's amulet, which was located somewhere in Earthrealm. He didn't know exactly what that pertained to, but he knew enough of Shinnok to know it wasn't good. He just wondered how kidnapping a couple of the Earthrealm Champions' kids figured into it. Reiko didn't just do that for the hell of it. So all the more reason to get them out of here.

Erron had an eye on them now, in fact. Skarlet had stuffed the two brats into a cage barely big enough for the two of them loaded on a cart. The girl, he saw, had a cobalt collar fastened around her neck. It didn't take a genius to figure that one out. Though it was messy, her hair was long and dark, and her eyes were a piercing blue the color of arctic ice. She was a spitting image of her father and clearly a Cryomancer just like him, therefore she needed to be contained and controlled.

The boy's lineage, on the other hand, wasn't as obvious in his features. Kenshi, Erron recalled, had a thinner face than this kid before him. The boy's face was moon-shaped, and his hair was longer, messier. He must've took after his mother. Either way, the gunslinger reckoned, both of the Earthrealm Champions probably hadn't took too kindly to their children being kidnapped, and he was kind of curious to see what they'd do to Reiko to have their revenge on him for it.

Erron stayed within ten feet of their wagon at all times as the procession trudged forward into the scorching desert, keeping an eye on the kids at all times while studying his enemies' movements, looking for any discernable weaknesses. In the distance, the sun began to fade and set, lighting the sky on fire in hues of pink and red. The angry wind blew at his side, yanking his cloak towards the dead vastness beyond him, carrying with it granules of sand and annoyed Tarkatan snarls. Dust devils whipped through the wagon train, and Erron caught a glimpse of the kids burying their faces in their drawn-up knees to shield them from the blasting debris. Eventually, as night began to fall, Reiko ordered the army to stop and make camp on a baked expanse of land that was cracked and parched from thirst.

On cue, Erron subtly dove beneath the supply wagon he had walked beside to hide from the taskmasters now putting people to work. He then watched as the General strolled to the rugrats, smiled at them through their cage's bamboo bars, and said, "When my tent is erected, I will have you both taken there so that you may rest more comfortably tonight."

"You're gonna regret taking us," the girl snarled. "My dad will-"

"Will what?" he challenged with a smirk. "Kill me?"

She shrugged. "Well, yeah."

He nodded his head solemnly in agreement. "Yes, young one, he will try. And he will fail. Even though his myth has become greater than the man, the Dragonslayer is still no god." He looked back and forth between them. "Skarlet will fetch you soon." And without saying another word, he walked off, barking orders at the Tarkatans.

Erron lay on his belly in the sandy dirt for several minutes, waiting for the Edenians and Tarkatans to become sufficiently distracted for him to make his move. Time, however, wasn't his friend. If Reiko put the kids in his tent, he'd undoubtedly station guards, and would probably be there himself to keep a close eye on them. That would make it damn near impossible to sneak them out without a fight. At the thought, his hand absently drifted to his holster and caressed the handle of his revolver. He'd never balked at a fight in his life, true. But that didn't mean he couldn't be smart about this. No reason at all to wake a sleeping rattler.

Finally, though, every enemy drifted away from the teenagers, who seemed more disgruntled by their capture than afraid, and Erron sprang into action. He quickly slithered out from beneath the wagon and darted towards the cage when no one was looking in his direction. His ammo belt jangled softly in time with his footfalls as he ran, and as he approached the kids, he saw them look at him in wide-eyed surprise.

"Who are you?" the girl whispered as he crouched low and hid behind the cart just before one of the Tarkatans spun around and looked in their direction.

"I'm the rescue party. Now put a cork in it," he whispered back as he peeked around the back of the cart, both of his guns now drawn. The Tarkatan suspiciously gazed at the kids for a long moment but soon lost interest and picked up a heavy bundle of tent poles. Erron was too seasoned to let out a sigh of relief, but he felt it all the same as he put his guns away. Thank God Tarkatans were so stupid.

The gunslinger now stood up straighter. "The Kahn sent me to get you for your parents."

"My dad is here?" the girl asked in something like disbelief as he examined the lock. It was going to be difficult to pick, and he didn't have the time or tools to do it.

"Dammit," he cursed as he now yanked one of his sand bombs off his belt. Then he glanced at her. "Yeah, he's here," he drawled. "Your dad too, kid."

"Really?" the boy snidely replied. "You mean he actually took time out of his busy schedule for _me_? I'm flattered. Didn't think that deadbeat cared."

"I don't know if he does, but _I_ sure as hell don't," Erron hissed at him. "So zip it, boy. This is delicate work." He looked at them both. "Whatever you two do, _don't_ breathe."

They looked at him in alarm but nodded in agreement. And then he gently unscrewed the cap sealing his bomb. The sand inside was no ordinary sand. It was a creation of Shang Tsung's, not unlike gunpowder, but far more explosive and caustic like acid. One mistake and he'd blow the cart sky high. Holding his own breath, Erron carefully sprinkled the sand into the keyhole, and the second it touched the metal, it crackled and sparked like the 4th of July. But in a few short moments, the inner mechanisms busted apart, and the lock sprang open.

"How'd you do that?" the boy asked in amazement.

"You want a chemistry lesson or you want to escape?" he pointedly replied. The other said nothing, and Erron slid the lock off the cage and opened the cage door slightly. "Come on," he beckoned. " _Quietly_."

In seconds, both kids were free and he was pushing them behind a tent that had been erected on the outskirts of the camp. The girl crossed her arms and looked at him expectantly. "Now what?" she demanded to know. "We're stuck in the middle of the desert. They're gonna see us if we try to run."

"We ain't gonna run," he said. "We're gonna hide."

"What?" she hissed.

Erron impatiently peeked around the corner and pointed to a line of carts fully loaded with barrels just sitting on the edge of the camp. "Take a look," he whispered, and she did. "Those are empty," he then explained. "Every time Reiko moves his camp, he sends them back to Toluca to refill with water for his army. We're gonna hide in them and hitch a ride, and he'll be none the wiser."

She nodded her understanding but then cast a suspicious glare at him. "But how can Takeda and I trust you?" she said. "We don't know you. You could just be another Outworld loser looking to ransom us back to our parents."

Erron immediately pulled out his revolvers and pointed one at each kid's face. "The Kahn is paying me a _lot_ of money to save you. So you _are_ coming with me. Whether you trust me or not is your own business."

"Whoa!" Takeda cried as he threw up his arms in the air in surrender. "Calm down, Clint Eastwood. No need to be so hostile."

The gunslinger scowled at them both but then rested his eyes on the girl, who was calmly breathing through her nose but glaring back at him defiantly, the ice in her eyes chilling and bitter. "You have anything else to add?" he demanded to know.

"No," she growled.

"Then follow me," he barked. She continued to scowl, but nodded in obedience.

The three cautiously scurried towards their destination. The camp was livelier than it had been all week, and Edenians and Tarkatans quickly worked to erect tents and build fire pits. A sense of urgency hung in the air; though few said it, Erron overheard a couple of Edenians express their concerns about holding the Dragonslayer's daughter prisoner. It was foolish, they whispered. The one true Dragon King had slain the scourge, Onaga. Those who were there said he'd widened his jaws like the mouth of an adder and then swallowed him whole before sicking up his bones onto the battlefield; when Onaga's army beheld his gruesome defeat, they laid down their arms immediately and marched willingly into the Cryomancer sea. Therefore, what chance did their lord, Reiko, have against him? Erron largely ignored their conversations – he silently dismissed the gossip as the total horseshit he knew it to be – and focused instead on avoiding notice as he led the kids through narrow passages between tents until a young man suddenly crossed their path.

Distractedly looking at a broken tool in his hands, the Edenian walked slowly through the intersection of tents, oblivious to the gunslinger and the kids as they awkwardly halted in place, trying to avoid detection. Erron held his breath as his hand drifted to his hunting knife. A gun would be faster and more efficient, true. But it would also be a hell of a lot noisier. He narrowed his eyes, glaring at the man who, for the moment, remained oblivious to their presence. He paused for a minute, and Erron's grip on the yellowed ivory handle grew tighter. But then, he started to move along.

And then, for reasons the gunslinger would never know or reflect on again in his long life, the man suddenly paused again and swiveled his head towards them. His eyes grew as large as dinner plates but Erron had already sprung into action. In less than a second, he'd crossed the distance between them and with the speed and reflexes of a coyote, he jammed the knife right through his throat at his voice box. The man's eyes widened in surprise as his arms uselessly tried to punch at the mercenary, even as thick, red blood spurted around the blade and dribbled down his shirt, but he was weak and Erron easily blocked him. He gurgled, trying hard to shout a warning through wet and squelching blood bubbles, but he could scarcely make a sound. Erron then gripped him by the arm to steady him as he yanked him into the shadows, only withdrawing his knife when he pushed him face-first into the sand. For several long moments, the Edenian writhed there as blood pooled beneath him, staining the sand so that it looked black in the growing darkness, but eventually he went still.

"You…you killed him," Takeda whispered as Erron wiped the man's blood from his face. It had spattered him as it sprayed out.

"What's your point?" he challenged. He knelt beside the corpse, quickly contemplating what to do with it. He didn't like any of his options. "Hey, girl, peek under that tent flap," he barked.

She swallowed hard but nodded and got to her knees to covertly look beneath the frayed tent edge. She made no noise, for which Erron was grateful, but he was even more grateful when she finally looked back at him and said, "There's nothing inside but some cots to sleep on."

A few minutes later, after the three had arranged the body on the closest cot inside to look like it was merely sleeping, they were back on the move. Silently, they cut through the tents, almost running now, getting closer to their destination, hiding in the shadows whenever a Tarkatan or Edenian grew too close. Erron hated that they'd wasted so much time on that jackass. It was a small wonder no one had noticed the kids' absence yet.

Even as he thought it, a loud alarm like a trumpeting horn blasted through the camp, instantly setting the Tarkatans in a frenzy, frothy spit spilling over their fangs as they ran towards the sounds of Edenians shouting. Over the sudden noise, the gunslinger heard Reiko bellow, "Find the children!" to all his minions.

"Goddammit!" he cursed as he let the kids fly by him and he shoved Takeda forward onto the water cart. By now, this side of the camp had been abandoned, but it wouldn't be for long. He already heard bloodthirsty snarling grow closer.

His heart pulled ever towards his revolvers, Erron threw off the lid of one of the barrels. As predicted, it was bone dry. "Get in," he growled at Takeda.

"I'm too tall," the teenager complained.

"Make yourself fit," he hissed. The boy looked at him in both hatred and astonishment, but hoisted himself in. When he was crammed inside, Erron fit the lid back in place.

"I can't get it off," the girl complained as she fought to open her own barrel.

"Here," he grumbled as he yanked it off for her. She was right; it _was_ stuck on there pretty good. Unlike Takeda, though, she didn't gripe about the tight fit. Instead, she practically dove inside so that Erron could seal her in too.

The Tarkatan roars were growing steadily louder, and the gunslinger cursed his luck. Reiko would undoubtedly order every stone in the camp overturned to find the kids, and he wouldn't let the water cart leave for Toluca until it had been thoroughly searched. Unless…Unless he thought the kids had high-tailed it into the desert already. He smiled thinly behind his bandana as his hands caressed his revolver handles.

"You two stay put," he called to them. "I'm gonna go create a diversion."

He waited for their muffled answers of acknowledgement, and then he leapt off the cart and ran towards the desert to force the Tarkatans to chase after him.

* * *

The evening was hot, even though a strip of dark purple sky loomed large overhead, and a burning wind whipped through the number of Earthrealm Champions silently traveling towards Toluca on the Mother Road. Kuai Liang, not surprisingly, took point and led them on the road which was made red by large deposits of rusty iron. It wound around great golden sand dunes that looked more like mountains, at least to Anya's eyes, and kept pace with a small, ruddy river dotted by the occasional shrub or cactus. No leafy trees grew here; if any grew at all, they were knotty and dry, their gnarled limbs like fingers reaching towards the sky as if begging the heavens for blessed water. Anya could relate. She'd already chugged down what felt like gallons of water since they'd left Z'Unkarah at midday.

It was all Kuai Liang's fault: this trip, Olivia's kidnapping, _everything_. Anya glowered at him constantly from her spot at the rear beside Hanzo and Kenshi, torturing herself by thinking of Olivia, remembering how her oldest daughter had begged her to intervene on her behalf, remembering how she'd refused her and betrayed her, remembering how she'd crushed her. If she could do it all over again, the nurse would've taken _all_ of her children from the Temple right then and there, to hell with what the Grandmaster thought, and they'd never look back. She would've wrapped her arms around Olivia, kissed her cheeks and hugged her, and said yes, she would stop her husband from sending her away. He'd had no right doing that, no right at all.

"We should think about stopping and making camp soon, Cousin," Fujin eventually said to Kuai Liang when the sky grew black and it became impossible to see.

"We can't," he argued, the faint wrinkles around his eyes deepening. "Olivia and Takeda may not have much time." His words stabbed at Anya, and she blinked back tears, furiously looking away.

"My _pr̆ítel_ ," Tomas gently said, "we can do no good for them if we're so tired we can barely stand, let alone fight. Olivia will need you at your best."

The Cryomancer, who had stubbornly dismissed Fujin several times up to that point, finally halted in the road and sighed heavily, nodding his understanding. "Very well," he tiredly conceded. "Here is as good a spot as any."

The others agreed with him, and they worked to set up camp. As Kailyn and Morgan went to the river to refill their water, and Anya rested for a minute on a rock, she sadly watched Alex help Tomas build a large fire pit just off the side of the road. The boy, the one she'd loved just like her own son – he was yet another painful thorn of guilt in her heart. The nurse wished she'd known about his relationship with her daughter before; she would've been happy for the two of them, and she would've told them so. Deep down, if she was being honest, she'd always hoped they'd fall in love. They'd been best friends since Olivia was born. Love was the only thing that made sense to her.

At the thought, Anya remembered when Tomas and Kailyn visited her and Olivia in the hospital shortly after she was born, and they'd brought both Morgan and Alex as well. Morgan had touched the baby's forehead, frowned, and jealously said, "Take her back!" But Alex had examined her, suspiciously at first. He had looked at both Kuai Liang and Anya nervously, as if he wasn't allowed to touch her. When they both reassured him, he smiled, leaned over the bassinet, and gently kissed her on the forehead.

But Olivia hadn't felt safe enough to tell her parents, to tell _Anya_ , about being with him. And that was the _real_ problem, wasn't it?

Once more, she glared at Kuai Liang, who was spreading out his sleeping bag on the ground near the fire pit, and she inwardly blamed him for everything. He'd made Olivia feel so damn insecure and afraid that she'd kept it bottled up inside, miserable, and unhappy. And all of her behavior as of late, Anya had easily deduced, stemmed from being forced to keep a secret she didn't want to keep. At the thought, the nurse wanted to punch her husband again, just on principle. But instead, she huddled on the rock, screaming epithets of hatred at him in her mind.

When the Grandmaster had finished making his bed on the ground, he looked up and saw her just sitting there, and he shook his head and sighed. "Come on, Anya," he said. "You need to spread out your bedroll. I'll help you."

"I don't need your help," she hissed as she got to her feet and crossed to the opposite side of the fire from him.

She felt him staring at her in anger and disappointment as she worked to make her bed in between Kenshi's and Morgan's, but she didn't care. She wasn't here for his benefit or his comfort or his well-being. She was here for Olivia. Her daughter. Whom she'd give _anything_ just to hug once more. She blinked back fresh, furious tears, but they wouldn't stop, and soon she was blinded by them. Now Anya was aware of _everyone's_ eyes on her. But she simply sniffed and then wiped her face in embarrassment before she finished with her task, pretending as if she didn't know that they were staring.

"I'm hungry," Morgan declared a minute later as she flopped down beside Fujin.

"Sounds like a personal problem to me," he teased her with a smile. Then he nudged her.

"Do you have chocolate?" she asked him, a mischievous grin crossing her face.

He softly laughed and shook his head. "And _now_ we get down to it," he said, feigning exasperation. "You're a big girl. Can't you remember to bring your _own_ chocolate on these excursions?"

"It would've melted," she retorted.

"What makes you think it wouldn't have melted for me?"

"Because you're so cool," she replied, and they both started laughing.

"Well, _I_ think I'm going to hurl," Tomas grumbled as Fujin grinned back at Morgan and gave her a Hershey's bar that he'd magically produced from inside his tunic. The cyber-ninja looked at Alex. "Make yourself useful, _můj syn_ ," he said. "Cook us dinner. I doubt Breaking Wind has enough chocolate to feed us all."

The Elite silently nodded – he had been painfully quiet since they'd left Arctika – and began rifling through a pack of food stores looking for the meat that Kotal Kahn had provided them for their journey. The entire company silently watched him prepare it for the fire, and Anya mused that he looked like a chef. The way he gently pinched some salt and sprinkled it on the meat was very reminiscent of the celebrity chefs on TV. Perhaps, in a different life, that could've been his job. She found she was glad for his know-how; the last time she went on a journey through Outworld, the group had been ill-prepared and had been forced to eat cockroaches and rats for nourishment. This was _much_ better.

Finally, though, Kenshi broke the silence and spoke. "What can we expect when we face Reiko?" he asked Hanzo.

The Shirai Ryu, who was quietly polishing one of his katanas, almost shrugged. "It is hard to say," he replied. "He is deadly and adaptable. Few face him in battle and live to speak of it."

" _You_ lived," Kailyn pointed out.

"Because he allowed it," he replied. "He had bested me. Had he desired it, I would not be here now."

"So why did he let you live?" Morgan curiously asked.

"So he could deliver the message," Kuai Liang answered her. He gazed at her sternly and she shrank a little into her father. The point was clearly taken.

Anya frowned. She knew that her husband didn't appreciate his two underlings accompanying them on this journey, and therefore he expected them to stay low and stay quiet for the duration. But how was Morgan supposed to learn if she didn't ask questions?

Inevitably, though, Kuai Liang then turned his attention to Alex. "So, how long exactly have you and my daughter been together?" he hissed at the boy.

"My _pr̆ítel_ , is this really the time?" Tomas demanded to know.

"I think it's the perfect time," he retorted. "We're sitting around a campfire with nothing to do but talk. So, let's talk."

"You cannot change it," Kailyn snapped at him. "So let it go. What's done is done."

"Actually," Fujin interrupted, "I think we should let this conversation unfold." Everyone looked at him in surprise. "It is clearly a discovery that is pulling Kuai Liang in two directions," he explained. "He can't hope to save Olivia if he is distracted by _this_." He looked at Alex. "It may be uncomfortable, but this conversation needs to happen."

"Amongst us all?" Tomas challenged. "It should be a private discussion, man to man."

"It should be however it needs to be," Fujin replied. He looked back to Alex. "Your Grandmaster asked you a question."

The Elite threw the slab of meat on a rack on the fire and then cleared his throat. "Just over a year, Grandmaster," he quietly said.

"And how, pray tell, did you…get together?" he snidely asked.

Now Alex shrugged before he looked thoughtfully towards the river, which was now shrouded in black. "It was her birthday," he finally answered. "It just kind of happened."

"That's terribly vague," he snapped.

"Kuai Liang," Anya now growled.

"No," he barked back at her. "I want answers."

The Hydromancer began to answer, the angry retort building in her throat, but she was cut off by the sudden caw of a large bird. Instantly, memories of the demon, Malphas, flooded her mind, and she looked to the skies in fear. Soon, a black bird, a raven, flew from the darkness scarcely seen and perched on the top of a nearby cactus. It cawed once more, and this time, Anya noticed a tube attached to its ankle.

"What is this?" Hanzo suspiciously asked as he and everyone else got to their feet.

Fujin fearlessly stepped towards the animal. "A message, I believe," he answered. "This is Scourge. He belongs to Reiko."

They all watched as the Wind God gently gripped the tube and withdrew a tiny scroll that was lodged within. Quietly, he opened it and read it to himself. Then he looked in alarm at the bird, which cawed in response before it flew away.

"What is it, my Lord?" Kailyn asked, her forehead furrowed in worry.

He looked at the message again and read it out loud:

 _Greetings, Earthrealmers,_

 _Let me be direct. There is something that I need that one amongst your number – the one called Kenshi – can provide. What I want from him is this: the current location of Shinnok's amulet. I have taken his son as well as the Dragonslayer's daughter to encourage his cooperation in this matter. I assure you, as a man of honor, and a warrior of my word, that as of right now, they are both in good health and being well-treated. I have no desire to hurt them; I find their company quite enjoyable. However, do not test my patience. Kenshi has three days from the delivery of this message to provide me with the location of Shinnok's amulet, or I will begin the slow process of exterminating the children. They will suffer greatly before I allow them to die. This, I promise. I await your response._

 _Cheers, Reiko_

Anya's heart pounded hard in her chest as she looked at Kenshi, who was now holding Sento in his hands almost like a security blanket, his face pale, his demeanor somber. She marched to him. " _Why_ does Reiko think you know where Shinnok's amulet is?" she demanded to know. As far as she understood it, Raiden and Fujin had hidden it somewhere and told no one, least of all the mortals, where it was located. It was information, they had said, that was too dangerous to be common knowledge. When the blind swordsman didn't answer her, she glared at the Wind God. "Fujin?"

The god inhaled deeply and sighed. "Kenshi is the only mortal in Earthrealm we trusted with this secret," he explained.

"You did not think _we_ were trustworthy?" Hanzo growled indignantly. "After all we have done for Earthrealm-"

"The less people who knew, the better it was for everyone," Fujin cut him off. "People who want access to such a thing never want it for good reasons."

" _Are_ there good reasons for wanting it?" Morgan asked him, looking at him worriedly.

He shook his head. "No," he said as he rested his hands on her shoulders to comfort her. "It's pure evil. Not in an abstract sense, but in a very literal one." He looked back to Hanzo. "If someone is insane enough to want it, you can trust that they will do whatever it takes to get it. They will murder and destroy anyone and anything that gets in their way. You're very lucky Reiko didn't permanently raze the Shirai Ryu off the map, Hanzo."

"So why Kenshi?" Kuai Liang now hissed.

"Because my powers will help me find the way in should the need arise," the swordsman finally spoke. "If, for whatever reason, Raiden or Fujin had fallen and could not protect it any longer, they entrusted me with the location so that the Earthrealm Champions could."

"What does Reiko want the amulet for, Lord Fujin?" Kailyn asked as she crossed her arms.

"I do not know," he admitted as he crossed his arms. "I will have to reflect upon it for a while."

"I don't understand," Tomas now said. "Why would they take Takeda at all? Why not Morgan? She seems like the more logical choice."

"Thanks, Táta!" she yelped in exasperation.

"I'm sorry, _můj sladký anděl_ ," he said to the Elite. "I simply mean that Fujin is much closer to Shinnok's amulet than Kenshi. If I were going to kidnap someone to use as leverage, I'd start with you."

"He knows I'd never make the trade," Fujin solemnly explained.

Now Morgan wheeled on him. "What?" she whispered, her lavender eyes wounded at his declaration.

The Wind God frowned, clearly pained by it as much as she was. "You must understand, Morgan," he began. "If anyone gets their hands on that amulet, not only are the lives of everyone in Earthrealm at stake, but the lives of everyone in all the Realms, and even the lives of the gods. I could not trade one life for billions, much as it would destroy me to do."

Tears now flooded her eyes and she swallowed hard. "I see."

"Morgan-"

"I understand," she said as she went to her mother's side. "I'd probably do the same thing. You're totally right." Even as she said it, she angrily wiped away a tear that had leaked from the corner of her eye.

"So he took Takeda and Olivia because he's banking on Kenshi not making the same choice," Kuai Liang deduced, clearly uninterested in Morgan's hurt feelings.

"Yes," Fujin sadly agreed, nodding his head. He looked at the swordsman. "You _can't_ give him what he wants, Kenshi. You _know_ what's at stake."

At the declaration, Anya started to cry. He was just so utterly calm about ordering the death of the children, and of her daughter. And worse, she knew Kenshi would obey. They entrusted him with this secret because they had to know, deep in their hearts, that he would always obey. He'd let his own son and her daughter die – horribly, perhaps – because he was an obedient servant.

Predictably, he said, "I will not tell him what he wants to know."

"So, that's it?" she choked. "We're just giving up?"

"Absolutely not," the Wind God said. "Reiko has given us three days to make our decision. That means we have three days to find the kids and save them."

* * *

Olivia could scarcely recall a time she'd ever felt so uncomfortable in her life. In order to hide in the barrel, she had twisted herself into a pretzel and could barely breathe. Gasps of air came with much difficulty, and the skin beneath the cobalt collar burned and itched, and no amount of scratching alleviated it. The heat from the desert mingled with the residual moisture inside the barrel, creating a hot steam like a sauna that made her drip buckets of sweat through her shirt, filling her nostrils with the stench of her own body odor. She had to pee, too, and didn't know how to accomplish that with any sort of grace, so she merely held it in, trying to ignore the steadily growing pain in her abdomen. She didn't know how long she could do that before she just wet herself altogether. At the thought, she wrinkled her nose in disgust; thank God Alex couldn't see her now.

For a long time, she listened to the sounds of Tarkatans and Edenians shouting, and of guns firing and bombs exploding, too frightened of discovery to cry, even after Reiko had finally allowed the water cart to leave for Toluca. As the wagon moved steadily on, swaying back and forth in time with the beast of burden's gait, she thought of the cowboy who'd saved them – surely, this was Erron Black, her parents' old ally in the fight against Onaga – and hoped his intentions were true. Logically, she knew she and Takeda couldn't cross the expanse of Outworld without a guide; her knowledge of it was limited to Tlachtga, the Hydromancer village hundreds of miles from here. He seemed to be the only helpful face around at the moment, and he _had_ cleverly led the enemy on a wild goose chase into the desert, putting himself at great risk. But she couldn't shake the feeling that she and Takeda had just traded one evil for another.

Those thoughts led to thoughts of her father, who, if Erron was to be believed, was in Outworld right now looking for her. Relief flooded her, shadowed only by a deep longing, and for a fleeting moment, she allowed herself to believe that he was going to save her and make everything better. Her heart, childishly perhaps, leapt for joy at the idea. Her father, the Grandmaster Sub-Zero, was going to make _everyone_ pay for daring to mess with her.

But then, just as the notion began to comfort her, a new voice of discontent whispered malice in her ears, reminding her that he was just there to drag her back to the Shirai Ryu so she could continue her punishment like a good little soldier. He would undoubtedly find some way to blame her for her current predicament; most likely he would tell her she shouldn't have worried about Takeda, only about saving her own neck. Olivia winced and blinked back silent tears, believing with all of her heart that was true. Morosely, her head flopped against the slats of wood and she didn't even bother to wipe her sweaty, tear-stained face dry.

* * *

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, Subby isn't _kinda_ angry with Alex, he's _very_ angry with him, LOL Definitely keep an eye on Kotal. I don't know if Olivia and Takeda will be total BFFs, but they'll at least learn to be nice to each other. And Reiko _is_ a bit cocky, but I'm trying to make him not be a total dick. **

**ROCuevas, thanks! Glad you like it thus far!**

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, well, Subby and Alex are going to have trouble, though I don't know if it'll come to blows. We'll see ;)**

 **Jlord37, what are you talking about?**

 **Firebending Master, yeah, I'm trying to make Reiko entirely different than Rain. I want him to be likable, not the guy everyone loves to hate and wishes dead where he stood.**

 **tinkknit, giggity giggity! ;)**

 **Tanturtle, why thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoy it that much :D**

 **en-lumine, it's all good! LOL I'm glad you're enjoying Reiko so much. I feel like he should be a beautiful villain, if that makes sense. And yup, bring on Mr. Black!**

 **Rhylan Writer, LOL that's a funny scene. Not quite how I envisioned them making up, but I think you should run with it! I'm glad you don't hate Reiko. I never wanted you to hate him, not like I wanted you to hate Rain!**

 **iceangelmkx, I think I remember that as well, but I am also too lazy to go look it up right now. I hope Erron's first appearance was cool.**


	13. Powerless

**Author's Note: This is kind of a filler chapter, but I hope you enjoy it regardless. Thanks to Hell-on-Training-Wheels for suggestions about Erron! And thanks to everyone for the well-wishes. I'm just taking it one day at a time and hoping for the best. There's a reason I got a phoenix tattooed on my arm ;)**

* * *

The eastern sky was rose and gold as the sun broke over the desert. Reiko watched the light spread from the top of a tall dune, his hand anxiously clutching the haft of his newly sharpened scythe. Below him the world turned from black to brown to tan as dawn crept across the shifting sands and rolling mounds. Pale white mists rose to the south from the Tinemilizameyali River, on the opposite side of a low rock ridge, where the ghost waters ran alongside the Mother Road and swept towards the distant sea.

In one fell swoop, Reiko's world had cracked and crumbled to dust around him. The children's escape had been a terrible blow to his pride and his plan, far worse than he had imagined it could be. Erron Black had somehow smuggled them out right beneath his nose, he had no leverage against the Earthrealm Champions, and once they discovered this, his hopes and dreams of ascending to godhood would be destroyed. Now that he'd revealed his hand to them, this had been his only chance to find Shinnok's amulet. He would not get another one. He knew that Fujin, who traveled with them, would never allow it.

He was a man wracked with anxiety as he stood on the edge of the camp and watched the surviving Tarkatan horde trudge wearily through the sand towards him, led by Skarlet, all of them dreading to give their report. Reiko already knew what they'd say. Erron Black had escaped. Had he not, they would be proudly carrying his corpse high above their heads, anxious to pay their Lord tribute. But the Kahn's pet Earthrealmer was a clever snake molded in the crucible of the desert, and he was difficult to catch once he decided to slither away. _Someday, though_ , Reiko thought with a fanged sneer he wasn't even aware had crossed his face, _I will crush the snake's head with my boot heel._ He curled his fingers into a fist at the thought.

"Tell me," he commanded his lieutenant as soon as she staggered to him. Even she had been winded by the long trek through the dunes. He gave her a long, searching look.

"Kotal Kahn's mercenary, Erron Black, has escaped," she declared.

"That is obvious," he replied. Reiko turned away from the sunrise. Its beauty did little to lighten his mood; it seemed cruel for a day to dawn so fair and end as foul as this one promised to.

"He led the Tarkatans towards the Dead Plains," she reported. "He used his weapons to destroy much of our contingent but he could not overcome us all. When it was apparent we would slaughter him, he disappeared into one of the spirit tunnels and we could no longer track him. But I vow to you, my Lord, that I _will_ find him and destroy him. I have already sent Edenian riders to hunt him."

He narrowed his eyes. "You have sent riders and you make vows," he replied, "but you were too cowardly to pursue him while you still could track him."

He didn't have to look at her to know that her eyes had widened at his insult. Precious few souls in Outworld – and _none_ in their number but Reiko – ever dared to enter the spirit tunnels. Legends had spread far and wide that ghosts, violent and angry ghosts from wars fought years before the General's own birth, lurked within them. They wanted to punish the living for having that which they could no longer have, and it was long rumored that anyone who entered never lived to tell the tale. Reiko knew this story was _almost_ a myth; he'd ventured in one once, and had emerged with a much healthier respect for things of a supernatural nature. His magic – Shao Kahn's magic, rather – had protected him. But it would not extend to Skarlet, nor would it extend to his minions should they enter. His comment to his lieutenant, therefore, was unreasonable. He knew it, and yet he did not care.

"There is more," she said. Her tone subtly betrayed hesitation. "The children were not with Erron Black as he fled. He smashed the Iron Tooth Tarkatans at Matixco, and met the massed power of the Long Claws at Olinalon Ridge. But the children were never seen accompanying him. Not once, my-"

Skarlet was immediately cut off by a fierce, two-handed shove to the chest powerful enough to hurl her onto her back on the sand. Reiko was practically on top of her before she even finished shuddering.

"What do you mean they weren't with him?" he roared at her.

She looked up at him in fear and surprise. He was rarely ever so angry, a striking contrast to his foster father, Shao Kahn. But she kept her tone even and proud. "They were not with him," she repeated.

"Then _where_ are they?" he shouted as redness crept into his vision. The tip of his scythe's blade slowly intruded itself between the two faces, one flushed in fury, the other masked but steady.

"I do not know, Lord," she said, her tone unfaltering. "I did not see them anywhere."

"Then your sight is as feeble as your hearing," he snarled. "I gave you very specific orders, Skarlet! I told you to find them at all costs, and not to return to me until they were in your custody." The scythe crept ever closer to her eye. Reiko then spat out several syllables of language so ancient, even most of the oldest Edenians wouldn't have recognized it – but then, they hardly needed fluency to tell that the words weren't polite. "We have missed something," he finally declared as he retreated to allow Skarlet to get to her feet, quaking with repressed fury.

At that moment, Scourge fluttered down to Reiko's shoulder without waiting for a summons and cawed at him. The General looked at him in annoyance. "Where have you been?" he snapped, waiting for the croaked response.

When he received it, he flicked his fingers as though freeing them of clinging dust. The answer his raven gave him could hardly be called a surprise; after he'd delivered the message to Fujin and the Earthrealm Champions, Scourge had returned to camp in time for the battle against Erron Black. The General had sent him to scout, and his faithful pet had not disappointed. The mercenary was on a course towards the water wagon. Even still, he needed a moment to piece together all the clues.

"Not a coincidence," he said to Scourge thoughtfully. Skarlet was all but forgotten now, even as she stood before him and watched them both in curiosity. "The mercenary knew far too much about us. The odds that he made a lucky guess about our weaknesses? No. He's been here, traveling amongst us this whole time."

The raven hopped from his shoulder to sit atop the scythe and look at him in the eyes.

"Tactical advantage against us is the only reason he would risk this," he said. The General continued his musing; the bird continued to stare at him. "He has been watching us, studying us, listening to us. That would mean that he'd know precisely where to hide the children so that he could divert our attention long enough for them to safely get away. That would mean, though, they are no longer in our camp."

"I do not understand, my Lord," Skarlet interrupted. "You have forbidden anyone from leaving the camp-"

"Did I?" he interrupted, now gazing deeply into Scourge's black eyes. "I sent the water wagon on its way to Toluca," he said. "The empty barrels provided ample room for them to sneak out unnoticed." He paused, knowing now that he'd made a grave mistake. "Mr. Black's sleight of hand was particularly adept." Scourge cocked his head and hissed, clearly unimpressed. "And now that he has eluded the Tarkatans, he means to intercept that wagon to rejoin the children."

"If they make it to Toluca, then all is lost," Skarlet declared.

"Send word with Scourge to our forces near the city," he ordered. "They are to stop that wagon at any and all costs. Kill Erron Black if they must, but take the children alive. And we, meanwhile, shall pursue them to Toluca. I want every last Tarkatan and Edenian rider to accompany us. We leave at once."

"Yes, Lord," she said as she turned to walk away.

"And Skarlet?" he called, forcing her to stop in her tracks.

"Yes, Lord?" she asked.

"These children hold my destiny in their hands," he told her, clutching his scythe so hard that his knuckles turned white. "Their fate concerns me. Yours does _not_."

Though his back was still turned to her, he felt her tense perceptibly at his threat. Scourge squawked and shuffled sideways atop the scythe, and at last Reiko looked at her over his shoulder. Two expressionless faces mirrored each other; blank, unmoving, but no more so than the respective warriors who wore them. Until, without another word, the Construct bowed in understanding and resumed her trek towards the camp.

* * *

It seemed as if weeks had passed since the gunslinger, almost surely Erron Black, had shoved Olivia and Takeda in the barrels and then ran off with the entire Tarkatan horde chasing after him, though in truth the Cryomancer knew it had only been a few hours. Still, her legs cramped painfully, she'd wet herself long ago, and she was dying of thirst in this roiling heat. She slicked back her soggy, greasy tresses and then tugged stupidly, somewhat deliriously, at the cobalt collar fastened to her neck. If only she could pull it off, she could make ice to suck on and to cool her body. She, like her father, was never terribly comfortable in extreme heat. Vaguely, she wondered how her father had dealt with this cobalt collar problem, and she wished that he'd talked to her about such things before.

"Dad, where are you?" she mumbled, inwardly praying for him to rescue her and break this cursed collar off her, completely unaware a word had even passed over her lips. With eyes closed, she slumped her head against the wooden slats, slipping into unconsciousness.

More time passed, but soon, a loud commotion outside stirred her awake, and she felt the wagon come to a slow halt. Muffled words, angry in tone, were exchanged. A gunshot soon rang out clear and loud, cracking through her ears like thunder just overhead, overwhelming the thud of a body as it landed on the ground. Then, the wagon shook as someone climbed onto it, and a moment later, the gunslinger threw off the lid of Olivia's barrel and peered inside.

"You alive, kid?" he asked.

Olivia winced, the brilliant daylight glittering and stinging in her eyes, but she nodded. "I think so," she weakly croaked as he hooked his hand beneath her sweaty armpit and pulled her out. "Where are we?" she said.

"The desert still," he told her as she leaned against the edge of the barrel while her tingling legs regained their feeling. "We made it safe, you'll be glad to know."

He turned around and now opened Takeda's barrel, fishing him out like he'd done to Olivia only moments before. Like her, the boy was soaked with sweat, and his legs knocked together unsteadily from numbness. He gasped for air and then promptly stripped off his shirt.

"That's a stupid move, kid," the gunslinger told him. "You'll fry in this sun."

"Just…need…a…moment," Takeda panted as he wiped the sweat from his face with his yellow sash before he draped it like a veil over his head to shield it from the sun.

"You must be Erron Black," Olivia tiredly muttered while she followed Takeda's suit and the gunslinger uncorked a water skin made from an animal bladder.

"Sometimes," he replied. He passed the skin to her, and she instantly took a long, greedy swig. The water was warm, but it didn't matter. It tasted as cold and sweet as high mountain spring water or Arctika ice newly melted.

"Easy, girl," he said. "Save some for your friend."

Olivia nodded and then passed the skin to Takeda before she gazed at her surroundings. "I've never seen a desert in person before," she said, her voice stronger than it had been only moments ago. "Never had the desire too, either."

"The Red Land," Erron said as he looked around as well. "Sometimes called the Sea of Despair. About as big as the Sahara back in Earthrealm."

Around them, the desert stretched out immense and empty, a vast expanse that reached to the distant horizon and beyond. It _was_ a sea, Olivia thought. A sea of sand and dirt. Past here, there were no hills, no mountains, no trees nor cities nor roads, only the endless sand dunes, the tall mounds rippling like waves when the winds blew.

"It's so big," she said.

"Deserts have that way about them," he agreed.

"There really _is_ nothing, is there? Not even cacti."

Erron shrugged as he took the water skin from Takeda. "In the Dead Plains back east, there's some stuff called ghost grass that's taller than a man on a horse. It's as gray as a corpse. Chokes out all other grass. The nomads say that someday, it'll cover the whole world, and when that time comes, everyone in it will die."

That thought gave Olivia the chills. "I don't want to talk about dying now," she said.

"Yeah, that's not the most cheerful conversation we could be having," Takeda agreed.

"Suits me," Erron said. He climbed from the wagon bed into the driver's seat, and took the reins of a beast that looked like it had just emerged from _Jurassic Park_.

"Can you help me get this collar off?" Olivia asked hopefully as she and Takeda climbed on the hard, wooden seat beside him. She squeezed in between them both. "I can't use my powers because of it."

"Sorry, kid," he apologized. "I can't help you."

"Goddammit, why not?" she snapped, instantly furious. "If your sand bombs can break that lock-"

The gunslinger immediately wheeled on her. "I used all my sand bombs on the Tarkatans," he growled. "I don't got no more, and the stuff I need to make more is in Toluca. So you're gonna have to sit tight and live with it until then."

" _You_ try living with it," she argued. "It makes me feel so tired and weak."

"Not my problem, kid," he said as he snapped the reins and set the beast in motion.

Olivia crossed her arms and looked at Takeda in anger and despair, wishing he'd say something in her defense. She hated this feeling, this knowledge that she was completely powerless. It wasn't merely the absence of her Cryomancy that bothered her; ever since they first sprang into existence when she was roughly four, and her father first taught her to tame them, they had been the well from which she'd always drawn her strength. Without them, she was nothing. Just an ordinary girl like all the rest. Perhaps Takeda would understand this, but he simply looked back at her and sadly shook his head. Furiously, she swallowed tears of frustration, and slouched in her seat, sulking while she fiddled with the collar.

Erron guided the cart down a dune, and all three of them sat on the narrow bench in terse silence. The descent was steep and unsteady, but the gunslinger guided the beast fearlessly, as if the joy and danger of it were a song in his heart. At the bottom of the ridge, the dunes rose tall around them, shifting and hissing in the wind. Erron sped up the cart and rode out into the shallow valley, and they were blessedly alone save for the vulture-like creatures flying through the air above their head. Olivia shuddered when she saw them, but said nothing and tried to ignore them as they plugged along.

The browns and tans swallowed them up as the day wore on and the temperature rose. The air was rich with the scent of salt and earth, mixed with the smell of the reptilian beast's flesh, and the travelers' sweat, and the oil in Olivia's hair. She was acutely aware of the stench of her and Takeda's Shirai Ryu uniforms, which were now soiled with urine on top of everything else. Her comrade, evidently, had trouble holding it in too. But if Erron knew they'd both had accidents, he said nothing and continued driving the wagon through the sand.

"So what are we going to do?" Takeda finally asked.

Erron clicked his tongue behind his bandana and flicked the reins harder, prompting the beast to move faster. He glanced at the teenager with hazel green eyes shrouded in his hat's shadow. "We're gonna head to Toluca and from there, join the Mother Road. I hear your folks are traveling down it now. I'll unload you off on them as soon as we meet up, and then after that, my business is my own."

"Reiko won't leave us alone, will he?" Olivia deduced. "He's going to chase after us."

"Probably," the gunslinger admitted. "He risked a lot to catch you kids. Ain't no man give up a prize like that without a fight."

"Do you know what he wants with us?" Takeda asked. "He didn't tell us much other than that we were leverage against my father."

"Don't rightfully know, kid," he said. "It has something to do with Shinnok's amulet. That's all I was able to ferret out before the Kahn sent me a message saying I had to save you two."

The two teenagers exchanged an alarmed look at the mention of the mystical bauble. "I don't understand," Olivia said. "We don't have anything to do with that thing. What would he want us for?"

The gunslinger shifted in his seat. "You said Reiko wanted to use you as leverage," he said. "Maybe one of your parents _does_ have something to do with it. And he's figured it out."

"But what would he want it for?" she challenged. "That thing destroys worlds, and Reiko doesn't strike me as the type that wants to destroy anything. Not like Shao Kahn."

"He doesn't seem like Shao Kahn period, which is shocking," Takeda added. "He seems a little insane, though, if you ask me."

Erron scoffed. "Well, we all got crazy in us," he drawled in his lazy timbre. "Some have bigger pieces than others." He looked at the teenagers. "But he _is_ like Shao Kahn, more than you think. He may not have the drive to conquer this Realm or others, but make no mistake: he's _very_ anxious to make something of himself too. Shinnok's amulet can make that dog hunt. And if that happens, ain't no army in any of the Realms strong enough to stop him. That's what my money's on."

They drove in silence again for a while, and the heat began to bother Olivia, who was having more and more trouble ignoring the vultures overhead and the annoying tug of the cobalt collar on her sweaty skin. Her hair hung wet and heavy, a loose strand stuck to her forehead, and she could imagine how ragged and wild she must look. The southern wind was hot and unpleasant. The Cryomancer hated the feel of it on her face, harsh as a blast furnace on her skin. She thought back to her childhood, to the long dark days in Arctika, and the memory of cold soothed her. She remembered the tree in the courtyard outside her father's office, the black, drooping branches heavy with snow and the sound of Alex's laughter as he chased her through frozen drifts. She remembered making snow pies with Morgan, the weight of them lighter than she expected, the ice from their combined efforts chilling her fingers. They had served them to Tommy and Dominic, giggling, and the tiny twin boys had eaten so much that they'd both gotten terrible brain freeze. Her mother had been furious with her, but her father had defended her. _Leave her alone, Anya_ , he had admonished his wife. _She's enjoying the snow, and the boys will be fine_.

As Olivia nervously fingered the cobalt collar, she remembered the most the day her powers had emerged. She had been playing with her dolls in her parents' quarters, quietly minding her own business, when suddenly her hands began to glow blue and the dolls began to hiss and pop as ice stretched and expanded over them – first their clothes, then their skin and hair. Olivia had screamed in terror, jumping to her feet, not understanding what it was she had done. For a moment, she had even wondered if her daddy was playing a mean trick on her. But then she brushed a chair with her hand, and it too froze, as did the sofa and the fireplace. Even the flames inside the firebox became as ice. She screamed again, and sobbed even louder, and when her very pregnant mother rushed in to see what was the matter, she shrieked for her to stay away from her because she didn't want to hurt her by accident.

Anya had called for the Grandmaster, and he then burst in as well to see what was wrong. Olivia had shrieked for him to stay back too, but he'd ignored her, understanding immediately flooding his blue eyes. Calmly, he had knelt before her and said, _It's okay, Livy_. He smiled. _You're just like me. You can do what I do_. _But I need you to calm down for me. Can you do that for me, baby?_

She couldn't. His words and tone didn't reassure her, and she had continued to sob until he said with a mischievous grin, _You've got something on your face, Livy_. Cautiously, he approached her, and when he was close enough he pinched her nose and pretended to steal it. _It's okay, I got it for you_ , he'd said as he held up his thumb, which was tucked inside his other fingers in such a way as to resemble her nose.

 _Daddy!_ she had cried in exasperation. _That's my nose!_

 _Oh, it is?_ he had asked in surprise. He shrugged. _Well, I guess it's mine now._

 _No, I want it back!_

 _But what if I want it?_

 _You can't have it. I need it. Grammy says it's cute._

The Grandmaster sighed. _Alright_ , he groaned. Carefully, he pretended to smash it back on her face. Then, with a knowing smile, he let his hand fall to hers to cup it, and then he lifted it in front of her face. Her hand was no longer blue or wreathed in white fog. _Well, would you look at that?_ he smirked. _All better now_.

Olivia sighed heavily at the memory, wishing for the thousandth time since landing in Outworld that her dad was there to make everything better, just like he'd done that day. But soon, she knew, she'd see him when Erron dropped them off on the Mother Road, and they'd undoubtedly go back to arguing like normal. He wouldn't be able to help himself. He'd yell at her for getting captured, and then take away her Rite of Ascension for _another_ year. Once more, she sighed.

"What's wrong?" Takeda asked her.

She blinked and looked at him, surprised by his concern. Brown eyes looked back at her, full of curiosity and compassion. She shrugged. "I'm just thinking about my father," she said.

"Oh." He looked away. "Me too."

"Yeah?"

"I'm just surprised he's here," he said. "Must be having a slow work week, I guess."

Takeda didn't elaborate further, and Olivia wasn't sure she should pry. So she simply nodded and looked ahead once more.

A moment later, Takeda leaned forward to look across Olivia, and he gazed at the gunslinger. "So what's your story, Wild Bill?" he asked. "You look like you just stepped out of a spaghetti western. Like one of Johnny Cage's movies."

Erron narrowed his eyes and looked at him coldly, clearly insulted. "Johnny Cage is a cull," he said. "You know what a cull is, kid?"

The teenager shook his head. "No."

"It's a specimen that's so worthless that you have to cut him out of the herd," he explained. "Now if all the people of the world were shoved into one herd, Johnny Cage is the one I'd throw a rope at."

"Wow, you really believe you're the real deal, don't you?" he teased.

"That's because I _am_ the real deal, kid," he answered.

Takeda smirked. "I read that cowboys these days just ride bulls in state fairs."

Erron scoffed in annoyance. "The only good reason to ride a bull is to meet a nurse," he said.

"Fair enough," the teenager agreed. "But either way, there aren't many _real_ cowboys left these days."

"I'm older than I look," he replied. He glanced at the kids. "And who said I was a cowboy anyway?"

"But-"

"Hey, kid," he snapped. "Never miss a good chance to shut up."

"Has anyone ever told you that you have serious anger issues?"

"Has anyone ever told you what a Colt .45 will do to your face?" he darkly countered.

Olivia cleared her throat and nudged Takeda in the ribs, and once more, everyone fell silent, each one lost in their own thoughts. Long they rode, ignoring, as best they could, the uncanny desolation of this blighted land: the blazing sun as it climbed through the sky, the sting of blowing sand in their eyes, gradually eroding the skin of their faces; the ever-present stench of body odor and urine; the shifting of the landscape as the wind gusted around them. On occasion, the shifting of the terrain suggested the presence of something else, some separate and distinct creature burrowing through the ground, something large, but whatever it was seemed disinclined to emerge, and Erron seemed unworried.

Eventually, though, the gunslinger stopped at the edge of a cliff. It almost appeared as though the world simply ended. A rough precipice dropped away until it was lost to the ubiquitous haze made from blowing sand and topsoil. It wasn't precisely jagged; it looked less like the edge of an escarpment than the edge of a wound. Indeed, rubble and rock accumulated along the rift looked like dried and crusted secretions bubbling up from pockets within the cliff face itself. And on the parched plains below, a city surrounded by a tall, adobe wall sprawled towards the distant ocean.

"We're here," Erron said.

"You don't say?" Takeda replied.

Erron cast him an evil glare. "Be on the lookout," the gunslinger then warned them as he clicked his tongue and then turned the wagon towards a trail to the bottom.

* * *

 **Dr. MKDemigodWarrior-Z, well, it had to get worse. And it's gonna keep getting worse before it gets better ;)**

 **ROCuevas, thanks!**

 **Obelisk of Light, I don't know that he has a conscience _yet_. Right now, Erron's only in it for the money. But, I hope to develop his character better and give him an interesting back story. I have one developed for him, but I won't reveal it all at once, only in dribs and drabs ;) Yeah, Fujin and Morgan's exchange was sweet, but I think Fujin effectively ended any possibility for any further moments like that in the very near future. Anya _is_ being stubborn, but mom's are like that when their kids are involved. Plus, it's Anya, who is notoriously stubborn anyway! LOL**

 **iceangelmkx, you're both definitely right. The kids' escape won't be so easy as it seems ;) Well, Kenshi's going to struggle with this choice, I'm not going to lie. But beyond that, mum's the word!**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, you're right about Erron. He's in it for the payout now, but I don't think that'll always be the case ;) Oh, Subby isn't going to let up on Alex anytime soon. I agree with you; he and Anya need to just talk it out. But right now, they're too worried about Olivia and mad at each other that they can't. Reiko will get his, don't you worry. And yeah, Fujin could've softened the blow to Morgan, but that would've been no fun for me LOL Oh, Olivia's definitely gonna learn that she has to trust Erron and Takeda before this story comes to an end. Also, thanks for your review on _Aftermath_. As soon as I think of a clever idea, I will _definitely_ update that shit LOL**

 **Hell-on-Training-Wheels, well, Erron's sand grenades struck me as a weird fatality in the game. It's just sand. I felt like there had to be something more to it than just that. So I got to thinking about his relationship with Shang Tsung, and I imagined that the sorcerer probably made it magical somehow so that it would be deadlier. I'm glad you liked that idea. Reiko is definitely going to be a far cry from my other villains. I like the way you put it: "a gentleman, but still an evil bastard." I feel like, in a way, that's almost scarier than creating a full-on psychopath like I did with Frost.**


	14. Daddy Issues

**Author's Note: I want to thank Obelisk of Light for coming up with the idea for the first half of this chapter. I don't want to spoil it, but suffice to say, she was inspired by the sad imagery in the last chapter and Olivia's memory of her dad. I also want to thank Hell-on-Training-Wheels for the suggestion to tweak that idea just a smidge. Again with the no-spoiler zone. :D**

* * *

The wind howled in the distance, sand lifting and hissing on the gusts, battering the ancient ruins mercilessly. There were stone bridges everywhere, all sprouting off from broad, flat-topped stone spires, all worn and crumbling and streaked with faded red and chipped gold. Level upon level, the maze stretched up and down through the scorching light, without any apparent beginning or end. Every bridge led to a spire, every ramp to another spire, or to other bridges. Some of those ramps led to platforms that had to be directly above the ones below. He could not see the base of any of them. Whatever direction Kuai Liang looked, as far as his eye could see in the blindingly white light it was the same, above as well as below. He moved on, seeking freedom, knowing it was an illusion. Everything was an illusion.

He knew the illusion; he had followed it too many times not to know. However far he went, up or down or in any direction, there was only shifting sand and ancient brick walls. The maze was stone, drier than a funeral drum, but the dankness of deep, fresh-turned earth permeated the air, as did the sickly sweetness of decay. Kuai Liang tried not to breathe it in, but the smell filled his nostrils regardless. It clung to his skin like oil.

A flicker of motion caught his eye, and he froze where he was, half crouched against the crumbling wall around one of the spire tops. It was no hiding place. From a thousand places an enemy could have seen him. The light cast shadows, but there were no deep shadows in which to hide. The light, he had observed, did not come from a sun, nor did it come from torches or lanterns; it was simply there, such as it was, as if it seeped from the air. More than enough to see and be seen. So stillness offered him very little protection.

The movement came again, and now it was clear. A girl staggered slowly and weakly up a distant ramp, careless of the lack of railings and the drop to nothing below. Her tattered yellow and black clothes rippled in the gusts of wind as if they were trying to fly right off her body, and her head turned, wearily searching. The distance was too far for Kuai Liang to see her clearly, but he did not need to be closer to know who she was: Livy.

"Olivia!" he yelled to get her attention.

A swell of relief surged through his chest when she looked up at him, and that was promptly followed by pain and knots in his throat. As he blinked back grateful tears at the sight of her, he tried tracing the maze with his eyes, to see how many connections she needed before reaching him, and then gave it up as useless. Distances were deceiving here, an important lesson he had already learned. What seemed far away might be reached by turning a corner; what appeared close could be out of reach altogether. The only thing to do, as it had been from the beginning, was to keep moving.

Yet, as he began to rush towards his daughter's distant form, he could not help wondering about Livy. How had she wound up here? How had _he_ wound up here, for that matter? He had been on the Mother Road with Anya and his comrades, hunting for his precious child as well as for Takeda. None of this made any sense.

For an instant, then – just for the length of time it took to take a breath – he remembered why it was dangerous to think here, and what it was dangerous to think about. As it had before, every time he allowed himself to think of what surrounded him as a dream, the air shimmered, clouding his eyes. It turned to gel, holding him. Just for an instant, just long enough for him to concede defeat, and then it released him, letting him go on his way.

The gritty heat prickled his skin, and his throat had long since gone dry as he trotted through the maze. How long had it been now? His sweat evaporated even before it had a chance to bead, and his eyes burned. Overhead – and not too far overhead, at that – the blue sky boiled so hot that the color seemed to wash out completely.

Smooth stones, pale and rounded, made a sketchy pavement beneath his feet, half-buried in the bone-dry dust that rose in puffs at even his lightest step. It tickled his nose, threatening to make him sneeze; when he tried to breathe through his mouth, though, dust clogged his throat until he choked. He tripped over a loose stone and abruptly overturned it, accidentally yanking it out of the dry ground. Kuai Liang looked back at it in annoyance, and empty eye sockets stared back. A skull. A human skull. Disgusted, he looked along the pathway at all the smooth, pale stones, all exactly alike.

He didn't like the idea of walking across them, but he had no choice; staying in one place too long was dangerous, and more importantly, he had to get to Livy. He had to save her. He couldn't be sure, but she had seemed wounded when he'd spotted her earlier, limping. Barely able to stand. Immediately, he started down the path again, his thoughts only with finding his oldest daughter and rescuing her.

Now Kuai Liang remembered hearing once that you could get out of a maze by always turning in the same direction. At the first opening in the wall, then, he turned right, then right again at the next. And ran directly into Livy. To his surprise, she was just a small child, perhaps four or five, and he vaguely thought it had been years since he'd towered so far above her. She looked up at him with startled blue eyes.

Surprise flitted across her youthful face, which was ashy gray as she leaned, panting, against the doorway, and her yellow clothes settled as she stopped short. She looked like a wild child; her hair was soaked with sweat, frizzy, and uncombed, and dirt caked her skin. Exhaustion overwhelmed her sunken blue eyes, and they looked cold and just this side of lifeless.

"Livy?" he said in relief as he reached out his hands and cradled her cheeks. He tenderly leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. It was clammy. "I've been looking everywhere for you. It's going to be okay, now, baby. We're going home."

"Daddy," she whimpered as if she hadn't heard him. "I don't feel so good," she said before she then collapsed. He barely had time to grab her before she fell to the ground completely.

Kuai Liang lifted her into his arms and immediately saw why she was so weak. A cobalt collar had been fastened tightly around her neck, so much so that it bit into her throat and cut faint little lines through her pale skin. The flesh around it was red and irritated. Memories of those cursed things flooded his brain, filling his mind with images of trudging with Kabal through volcanic fields, sometimes needing his old comrade to carry him, unable to fight, barely able to stand. In panic for his daughter, he knelt to the ground to break her free.

"Who put this on you?" he growled, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

She exhaled a ragged breath. "Reiko," she croaked. She looked even paler than she did before.

The Grandmaster scowled as he propped her against the wall. He was going to murder the General slowly when he found him. But right now, his only concern was saving Livy and finding a way out of this maze.

"Hold still," he told her as he commanded the air around his fists to tighten and chill.

But nothing happened. It wasn't the cobalt, he was certain; his powers weren't muted by the cursed metal. They just simply weren't there.

And now Livy was as white as a ghost. She looked at him tiredly, her eyes now full of fear and understanding. The light in them was rapidly fading. He recognized that look, having seen it far too many times in the course of his life. She was dying.

"Daddy?" she began. Her voice was small and weak, barely audible.

"What?" he asked her gently, stroking her cheeks. He wanted to eat her pain, just take it into his body and make it his own.

"This is all your fault," she said, and he recoiled at the words. "You did this to me."

"What are you talking about?" he replied, suddenly hurt, though hurt did not do the feeling justice. The thought chased after him like a madman with a chainsaw, cutting his heart in two. Her words wounded him because deep down, he suspected she spoke the truth.

"You sent me away," she said in her smallest voice, and tears began to streak down her face. "Because I was a bad girl."

He looked at her for the longest time, stunned. It wasn't true, he insisted to himself. But then again, wasn't it? She'd acted out, lied to him, and if he was being honest with himself, _hurt_ him. And even though everyone else thought she should stay and graduate, he still couldn't let it go. He'd sent her away and now this… _this_ was the result.

With an angry snarl, he tried to summon his powers again, but once more, nothing came. Still he tried once more, to the same end. When his powers failed to surface yet again, Kuai Liang reached out and gripped it, trying to break it off with his bare hands. It should have had a clasp or a lock to keep it fastened on her, but surprisingly, there was nothing like that at all; it was just one solid, cobalt ring.

"Livy," he muttered, his voice cracking in desperation as he fought to tug it off her. It only cut deeper into her throat, and when he dared looking at her, he saw more tears leaking from her eyes and cutting tracks through the dirt on her face.

"I'm sleepy," she whispered as she closed her eyes.

"No!" he stubbornly snapped at her. "Stay awake, Livy," he barked. He prayed she'd take offense to his tone and start arguing with him like she always did. But there was no fight left in her anymore, and she sat there against the wall, silent.

Kuai Liang now yanked her into his arms, cradling her just like he did when he'd read her stories. Her favorite had been _Dear Mili_ , and he'd often thought Livy was as good and as kind as that girl in that book, and he'd always hoped she had a guardian angel just like that, and that she looked at him like that girl had looked at the old man, Joseph. He was her protector and her teacher, but most importantly, he was her friend. At the thought, Kuai Liang held tight to this daughter he loved so desperately, and he wasn't ever going to let her go.

He wasn't going to lose his baby girl. That just wasn't going to happen. No father should _ever_ have to bury his child. It wasn't the natural order of things. He was supposed to go first. He'd always been prepared to go first. As he inwardly argued with Fate and the gods, and all the things that weren't obeying the rules and that natural order of things, he began to cry. He knew they did not care.

Then Livy gasped and her breath came laboriously, rattling hard. Her head lolled backwards, and frightened, Kuai Liang lightly slapped her cheek to keep her awake. "No!" he yelled at her, pulling her tighter to him. "Olivia Leigh Sullivan, you stay awake! I am your father and you _will_ do what I say!" he futilely cried. But deep down, he knew it was foolish of him. The cobalt collar was stronger than he was. At the realization, he wept even harder.

"Dad…" she trailed off, too weak to finish speaking the word, the name she used to call him by, the one word that gave his otherwise miserable life meaning.

"I'm here, baby," he said, grimacing. Kuai Liang found that he couldn't breathe. Something heavy sat on his chest, crushing him slowly and in agony, promising no relief. "It's supposed to be me," he babbled, his voice barely a whisper. "It's supposed to be me. Not you."

He thought of the moment she was born, when he held her for the first time. He had looked down on her tiny, squished face in disbelief, unable to comprehend how something so perfect and wonderful had come from _him_. In his life, he had created many amazing things with his powers, and he had conquered far too many insurmountable odds. And yet, she was the one thing he was the most proud of. His beautiful little Livy.

Defiantly, the Cryomancer tried once again to break the collar from her neck. She was so sick and drained of her life force by this time that even should he successfully free her from the horrid thing, there was no guarantee she could recover. But he had to try.

His attempt failed, and now she began to gurgle, the death rattle loud and noisy in her lungs. He shook her, hoping to jar her free of Death's grip. "No, no, no!" he muttered over and over. "Livy…My sweet girl." He pulled her onto his lap and pressed her head into his shoulder, running his fingers through her hair, shakily combing out the rats even as he wet her dark locks with more of his tears. "Don't make me tell your mother…" he trailed off. He couldn't bear to utter the rest – _that you died_ – out loud. He winced and held her closer.

Her signs of life were rapidly fading. Beneath Kuai Liang's palm, her heartbeat grew weaker until at last it stopped altogether. He began to shake, mentally wrestling to keep the tears inside. It was as if some great and terrible monster inside of him fought to get loose, struggling for control, threatening to swallow him in its anger. And soon, it won. As he rocked his dead daughter in his arms, he began to wail to the sky, his heart a defeated song of agony…

* * *

…that continued even after he woke up in his bedroll next to the campfire. Kuai Liang jerked and opened his eyes, his heart pounding in his chest while someone – he wasn't sure who – asked him if he was okay. Darkness, lessened only by the pale light of the dying campfire, surrounded him. Barely breathing, he sat up like a shot, throwing off the blanket that covered him to his shoulders and staggering to his feet while his teammates looked at him in wide-eyed surprise. He was on the Mother Road, he realized, and he was traveling with the Earthrealm Champions. Finally, he let out a long, shaky breath. It was just a dream. A nightmare. And it was over…for another night, at least.

"My _pr̆ítel_ , are you alright?" Tomas asked in concern as he lifted an eyebrow.

Kuai Liang angrily shook his head. "I'm fine," he growled as he paced for a minute to settle down. His heart pounded hard in his chest.

His path briefly took him past Blue. She looked up at him, cocked her head, and then laid her head back down and went back to sleep. Anya, meanwhile, barely even glanced at him. Her coldness towards him agitated him even more, and he snarled as he hurled an ice ball at the nearest tree. It shattered under the weight of the ice.

"Grandmaster," Alex quietly began, "we'll get Olivia back. If there's one thing I know about her, it's that she's too stubborn to let herself be-"

"Finish that sentence," the Cryomancer challenged him, whirling around to give him his most hateful stare at the same time he pulled his ice-charged fist back to strike. "Just say one more word to me."

The Elite swallowed hard and looked away, even as Tomas jumped to his feet and shoved his friend. "That is _enough_!" the cyber-ninja bellowed. "So he's dating your daughter. That is no reason to act like this! You will _not_ talk to my son like that anymore, Kuai Liang!"

The Cryomancer couldn't take it anymore. He roared and leapt at his best friend, tackling him through the middle, drilling him into the dusty ground. Red bled through his vision as he landed on the Enenra and shoved him hard into the dirt before taking a swing at his face. His fist connected and a loud crunch cut through the air as a tooth flew from Tomas' mouth. Blood poured over his lips, streaking down his cheek, and spilling into his hair, even as he groaned in pain. Somewhere close by, he heard Morgan yell for them to stop.

Kuai Liang raised his hand to take another swing, but something hard cracked into the back of his skull, and it knocked him completely off his friend. Woozily, he looked up and saw Kailyn standing above him, poised to run him through with her spear. Her eyes were blazing amethysts, furious and full of scorn.

"Control yourself, Cryomancer!" she snarled, saying the last word like a swear word. Alex and Kenshi, meanwhile, lifted Tomas from the dirt.

"Put your spear down, Kailyn," Fujin barked at her, his voice even fiercer than hers. She grudgingly obeyed, so he edged his way past her and offered his hand to the Grandmaster. "You're not helping matters," he reprimanded her a moment after he'd lifted his cousin to his feet.

"This fighting is pointless," Hanzo said to them all, now standing between Kuai Liang and Tomas, who were currently glaring at each other. "Our only hope of defeating Reiko is to face him as a unified force."

"Agreed," Fujin said.

Kuai Liang was scarcely paying attention. The back of his skull where Kailyn had hit him was gushing blood down his shirt. It throbbed, full of aching fire. He gingerly touched it through his hair and felt a fresh goose egg jutting from his scalp.

"If he touches Tomas again," the Tetrach began, "or if he says another word in anger to my son, then _I_ will deal with him."

Fujin narrowed his eyes at her. "You will do no such thing," he said. "Kuai Liang has every right to be angry at Alex."

"How do you figure?" Tomas retorted on his son's behalf. He spat blood into the dirt.

"A mature man would have the courage to be honest about his relationship with the Grandmaster's daughter," the Wind God said. "He would not have fought so hard to hide it."

"Their relationship is none of his business," Kailyn argued. "Would you behave this way if Morgan had coupled with someone?"

"First of all, Morgan _hasn't_ coupled with someone," he protested. Then he thought about it, spun around, and looked at his daughter. "You haven't, right?" he asked her. With surprised eyes and beet-red cheeks, she shook her head no, so the Wind God looked back to her mother. "She _hasn't_ coupled with someone, Kailyn. But if she did, I'd be as angry as Kuai Liang if the young man in question snuck around and tried to keep it a secret from me. If a boy wants to court _my_ daughter, I expect him to behave like an adult and discuss the matter openly with me."

"Olivia is just as complicit as Alexander in this situation," Kailyn shot back. "Perhaps the Grandmaster should point the blame at her as well. She was no helpless victim in the matter."

"Maybe not," Kuai Liang growled at the Hydromancer, at all of them. He shook like a leaf from anger as they all now stared at him. "But I know that Olivia never lied to me once in her life. She never kept secrets from me, she never snuck around, she never treated me with disrespect. What a coincidence that all that started the moment she got together with _him_. He corrupted her, and he ruined every good thing about her." He snorted in fury, turned to walk away, and then turned around again because a new thought occurred to him. He looked directly at Alex, who was propping up Tomas on his shoulder, and pointed his finger at him. "I regret the day I saved you from Grandmaster Oniro. As far as I'm concerned, Cyrax should have tossed you off the cliff the same as your sister."

At that, Tomas instantly tried to lunge at him, but Kenshi and Hanzo both restrained him as Anya gasped in horror. "Kuai Liang!" she said in exasperation.

But he ignored her and now pointed at Kailyn. "And if _you_ ever lay a hand on me again, you're going to discover firsthand why the people of Outworld call me the one true Dragon King," he snarled.

"As if a Cryomancer could ever best a Hydromancer Tetrach," she scoffed, unimpressed.

"Go calm down, Cousin," Fujin sternly ordered as he gently pushed him away from the others. "This anger is unhealthy."

Kuai Liang scowled one last time at all of them, and then he stormed towards the nearby river with ice involuntarily creeping into his veins. He stopped on the bank and breathed in the damp, musty air, wanting to destroy something – _anything_ – just so that it would understand how he felt right now, like an unyielding boulder was crushing him beneath its weight. Furiously, he threw out both arms like a whip, and jets of ice flowed with them. Eerie blue light vaguely pushed back the darkness, at least enough for the Cryomancer to see that his powers dropped ice floes into the rushing water. He stood there for several minutes like that, futilely wasting his powers, and he probably would've continued had he not heard Anya creep up behind him.

"What do you want?" he snapped at her, never bothering to turn around.

"Fujin sent me to heal you," she said. She sounded as happy about it as she would've been jump-roping with a cobra. "He said Kailyn split your skull open."

"It's fine," he stubbornly replied. That was a lie. He was fairly certain she gave him a concussion; now that his adrenaline was receding, he felt woozy. Blood still dribbled down his neck as well.

"Suit yourself, your stubborn jackass," she said. "I'm going back to sleep. Fujin says we're leaving in a couple of hours." His wife turned to leave.

"Anya, wait," he called, suddenly realizing he didn't want her to go. He missed her, had missed her for several weeks since he first sent Olivia to Japan. A ball of thorns lodged itself in his throat when he remembered how she vowed to divorce him once this situation was resolved. But he also remembered a vow he made to himself years ago; he loved her too much to let anything destroy them. They would sit down and fix it – he would do whatever it took to change it – but _nothing_ was going to break them apart. Not again.

"Kuai Liang, I'm tired," she muttered impatiently as she stopped. "I honestly don't want to listen to whatever it is you have to say."

"You were right," he blurted out as he turned to face her.

Anya frowned, cocked her head, and crossed her arms. "What are you talking about?" she said.

"About Olivia," he said. "About everything." He sighed and then stepped to her. "I messed it all up. I took you and her and everyone for granted, and I messed it all up." He looked down, his voice threatening to crack. "And I…I hate myself for it. I can't even live with myself. I've done some deplorable things in my life, Anya, but this is by far and away the worst. I know that you hate me so much right now, but you can't possibly hate me as much as I hate myself. And if Olivia…" He couldn't bring himself to finish his thought. "Well, if anything happens to her, I will never forgive myself."

With that, his knees gave out and he fell onto them hard. In spite of her anger with him, though, his wife's compassion for him won out, and she dropped to her knees beside him and she immediately pressed her hand to his bleeding scalp. As it always did when she healed him, her power soothed the sharp ache and the swollen tissue until it was only a memory. And then she cupped his chin in her hand as she gazed deeply into his eyes, hers full of tears.

"You've had that nightmare every night, haven't you?" she softly asked.

Kuai Liang nodded solemnly. "Since Reiko took her," he replied. "I've been trying hard not to sleep, but...I just keep dozing off when we stop moving." He blinked back tears. "We have to keep moving, Ahn. We can't stop." With that, he tiredly slumped against her shoulder and closed his eyes. "I want her back. Why…why did that bastard have to take my baby?" As he uttered the words, the levees inside him broke loose and his voice cracked completely.

He sobbed for a moment, a quiet and exceptionally rare ordeal that only Anya was allowed to see. She patiently held him, stroking his back and hair to comfort him, and in that moment she amazed him. She was so angry with him that she wanted to divorce him, and yet her compassion for him triumphed over her spite. He lifted his damp face from her shoulder, looked at her with all the love and admiration his heart could muster, and then tenderly kissed her cheek.

"I'm sorry," he said to her as he took her hands in his. "I should never have sent her away. If I had known exactly what Alex was doing to her, I would've handled everything differently."

Anya said nothing for the longest time, but just when he was about to say something more, she cut him off and said, "This isn't Alex's fault, Kuai Liang."

Now his anger welled up again, and he pulled away from her. "Don't defend him!" he snapped.

"Well, it's true," she replied, her voice annoyed too. "Olivia had a say-so in this too. When has your daughter _ever_ done something she doesn't want to?"

"You sound like everyone else back there," he snarled.

"Well, they're right," she said.

"No!" he yelled, now climbing to his feet. "I am _not_ going to let you do this. I am _not_ going to let you blame her. She's your _daughter_ , Anya. Why aren't you defending her?"

"Kuai Liang-" she sighed.

"No," he cut off. "This is Alex's fault. He tricked her. You know as well as I do that she's nowhere near old enough to have sex. She's just a girl."

"No, Kuai Liang, she's not!" Anya barked back as she now jumped to her feet. "She's not a little girl anymore. Whether you like it or not, she's physiologically a grown woman with adult urges and needs."

"Ugh, don't talk that way," he groaned. He didn't like the idea of his daughter having urges and needs. The very notion made him want to commit hara-kiri.

"So what did you think?" his wife challenged. "That she was literally going to stay an infant forever? That she'd never grow up and be interested in boys?"

"I was kind of hoping," he muttered. His tone was sarcastic, but there was a kernel of truth to his words.

"Kuai Liang," she said in a tone to coax out sincerity.

"Oh, all right," he conceded in frustration as he threw up his hands in defeat. "No, I assumed she'd eventually find someone and have kids of her own, and in order to have kids of her own then naturally, she'd have to…do stuff." He couldn't bring himself to say 'have sex with someone' because the mere thought made him want to kill himself again. But now he looked at Anya. "But I just never expected it to be this soon. She can't be an adult yet, can she? I mean, this whole thing – her _childhood_ …it's just gone by too damn fast." He sniffed, and once more, he wiped his eyes. "It seems like just yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital and I was so happy to have her that I didn't even want to set her down long enough so I could take a nap."

Anya softly laughed. "I remember," she said fondly, smiling.

"So where did time go?"

She shrugged. "I don't know," she answered.

He looked away, his eyes gazing at the distant campfire. "I feel like I missed the whole thing."

"But you didn't," Anya reassured him. "You have always been there for your kids, Kuai Liang. This – Olivia growing up? It's just what happens. And it's going to happen to Tommy and Dominic and Sam too."

"Well, I don't like it," he declared.

"We couldn't tell," she chided. Then she rested her hand on his arm. "But again, this isn't Alex's fault. I believe him when he says he pushed Olivia to tell us, and I think you should too. He's like a son to you, and he's never lied to you."

"Until now."

"Kuai Liang, Kailyn was right. They _both_ deserve a share of the blame for this sneaking around. Last I looked, it takes _two_ people to have a relationship."

"I still think he pressured her until she caved," he stubbornly growled.

"You don't really believe that," she argued. "Your daughter is headstrong."

"Yeah, and don't think I don't blame that on you," he retorted grumpily.

Anya sighed. "Fine, blame me if it makes you feel better. I'm just saying that Alex has always adored her. He's her best friend. He listens to her, he makes her laugh, he sticks up for her, he takes care of her." She scoffed. "Hell, Kuai Liang, he was even willing to risk you killing him just so he could come here and help rescue her." She caressed his cheek, and he closed his eyes, letting the motion calm him. "He's a good kid who treats our daughter well. And isn't that the best any parent can hope for?"

Her words inflamed his agitation again and he pulled away from his wife once more. "He took Livy from me," Kuai Liang stubbornly snarled. "He turned her against me. And now, I may never get the chance to make it right with her. So I'll never forgive him."

Anya sadly sighed. "Dammit, Kuai Liang, if I can forgive you, then you can forgive _him_."

"Never," he argued.

She shook his head. "You stubborn jackass," she said in disgust, shaking her head furiously. "She didn't get that stubborn streak from _me_ , pal," she then growled as she pointed at him. "She's just like you." She started to storm back to the campfire, but then she abruptly turned around and looked him in the eyes. "But maybe, just maybe, that's what's going to keep her alive until we find her."

* * *

 **Hell-on-Training-Wheels** , oh, thanks. It's taken years of practice, believe me! I'm glad you approve of my depiction of Erron. He's tough to write, which is weird because I'm from the Wild West too.

 **ROCuevas,** thanks!

 **DarkAssassin15,** you're right, Olivia does have a lot to learn. And she will :) You know, I don't know, but how do people like Hitler gain so many followers? I think it's because those people promise something to desperate listeners. Skarlet, for example, is loyal to Reiko because she's a construct and was loyal to Shao Kahn. I think she was probably programmed that way. So now, she's automatically loyal to Reiko.

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor,** well, Reiko usually isn't such a douche to Skarlet. He's usually pretty patient. But yeah, he's got his eye on the prize and nothing is gonna stop him from reaching it. Well, neither Subby nor Olivia are terrible people, they just have to overcome this hump in their relationship. But yeah, I hope the memory was endearing. It makes me glad that you giggled at Erron's quippy remarks. I worked hard on those LOL

 **Obelisk of Light,** well, I _hope_ you like Erron's backstory, when I get to it :) Reiko is usually a tough nut to crack, but he's so desperate to get the amulet that he's decidedly on edge. And yeah, don't expect an immediate reunion. We've got a whole lot of story left to go :D

 **iceangelmkx,** great, now I have Bon Jovi stuck in my head. Thanks for the earworm! LOL Oh, thanks. Maybe that'll be my next painting ;) Nice, I'm glad you laughed. Well, I will be here to help however I can when you're ready. You're right; they've arrived to town but they're about to get into deep trouble.


	15. The Loss of Innocence

**Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has favorited, followed, and reviewed my story thus far. I appreciate every last ounce of support from you guys! :D**

 **I hope you enjoy this update. It's a little bit shorter than my usual battle sequences, but it just felt like the appropriate place to end it. So, yeah. Anyway, have fun and let me know what you think!**

* * *

Erron, Olivia, and Takeda rode on their stolen cart onto a grassy plain baked golden brown by a summer-bright sun that was, at the moment, setting in the distance. Sporadic trees, too few to qualify as woodland, cast pennants of shade across the landscape on either side of the road to town; random hills, too few to qualify as a range, provided that landscape with contours of its own. A few of those knolls, mounds of rock rather than hills of dirt and soil, were barren save for the occasional bit of scrub. Their rocky carapace was too brittle and flaky to be worked, though there were plenty of natural caves honeycombing the earth. In the distance, perhaps a couple miles away, Toluca grew ever larger in their sight.

Olivia quietly tugged at her cobalt collar, which made her increasingly tired every minute, as she glanced up at her rescuer. She suspected he was decent looking behind his bandana mask, even if he _was_ too old for her. His hair was longish and blond, and held back from his face by the black outback hat he hadn't taken off since they'd first met hours ago. That face was made from stony planes and angles, weathered with faint wrinkles forming around his eyes. His cloak was ruddy brown and stained by the road and blood; it almost seemed to disappear at times, fading into whatever lay behind it. And when he moved, Olivia could think of nothing but a wolf.

Sensing her eyes upon him, Erron eventually gazed back at her with eyes as green as a forest in summer. For a split second, the young Cryomancer felt as if he were weighing her in his mind, and there was no sign on his face of what conclusions he had drawn. Then he clicked his tongue, faced forward once more, and hurried the reptilian creature on faster. Olivia, meanwhile, let out a breath she had not realized she'd been holding.

"What's on your mind, kid?" he finally asked, as if talking to her were a largely onerous chore he'd just as soon shirk.

She shrugged, not really knowing the answer. He said nothing, and then a thought _did_ occur to her. "I just want to say thank you, Mr. Black, for getting us out of there," she told him. "I realized I never told you that."

"Yeah, thanks," Takeda added.

The gunslinger merely grunted at that, and Olivia realized that was as close to acknowledgement that she was going to get from him. She sighed, and then looked at him again. "So, where do you come from?"

"Around," he grunted.

"Well, how'd you wind up coming to Outworld to work for Kotal Kahn?" she asked, unsatisfied by his vagueness.

"Don't worry about it," he barked.

"Just curious," she said. "We have nothing else to do but talk. You might as well tell us a little about yourself."

He glared at her. "You're a persistent little cuss, ain't ya?" he demanded to know.

"It's one of my more charming personality traits," she retorted, unintimidated. "Seriously, I want to know."

"It's a long story," he finally conceded. "Let's just say I've been here a long time."

"How long?" Takeda wondered, now leaning forward in curiosity as he looked at him.

"Long." Erron gazed up at the sky, clearly trying to remember. "Shang Tsung found me and hired me out in…" he trailed off, hemming and hawing as he fought to find the right number. "Well, I guess it was right after I killed…" Once more, he trailed off, though this time, the memory clearly pained him. "So I've been here since the summer of 1881."

Olivia thought her eyes would pop right out of her skull. "How's that possible?" she demanded to know.

The gunslinger shrugged. "Hell if I know, kid," he said. "Shang Tsung cast a spell on me to keep me from aging and dying. I'll probably outlive all of ya, providing something nasty don't kill me first."

Takeda looked at him in awe. "So, you really _did_ live in the Wild West then?" he asked with mouth agape. "This whole thing isn't an act to look tough?"

Erron bitterly chuckled at that. "Yeah, I did," he said. "And no, it ain't no act."

The teenager looked at him with sudden reverence. "I love reading about the American West," he said to him. "Someday, I want to visit there. I want to go to Colorado to see Doc Holliday's grave in Glenwood Springs. He was my favorite outlaw."

Erron nodded in approval. "Doc was a good man," he said. "He knew his iron something fierce. Taught me some. Shame how he died. Better to have been shot, at least as far as I see it."

"You knew him?" Takeda asked, suddenly very excited.

"A little," the gunslinger shrugged. "But we didn't exactly run in the same circles. I spent most of my days in New Mexico territory."

"Well, who _did_ you run with?" Olivia tentatively asked. She knew a little Wild West history, but not nearly as much as Takeda clearly did. The history of the pioneers was boring to her, and the only gunslinger she really knew and cared about was Annie Oakley. The bulk of what she knew of Doc Holliday came from a movie she had watched with her Grammy one time, a movie called _Tombstone_. She expected that wasn't a completely accurate depiction of the man. Hollywood, she had observed long ago, seldom got the story right.

He looked at them both. "The Lincoln County Regulators," he said.

Olivia had no idea who that was, and she felt stupid as she looked at Erron blankly, but Takeda nearly leapt from his seat in excitement. "Get out!" he cried. "You knew Billy the Kid?"

Erron nodded solemnly. "We were old friends," he said. "We was… _educated_ together."

The gunslinger looked as if he might elaborate more, when suddenly a war horn blasted and interrupted their conversation. _Harooooooooooooooooooooo_ , it cried, its voice as long and low and chilling as the howling wind racing through Arctika in a storm. Even as Olivia and her companions looked with surprise ahead of them, the direction it exploded from, more trumpets answered, _da-DA da-DA da-DAAA_ from the right. She knew it was only her imagination, but the second trumpets sounded smaller and more anxious, and yet that much more dangerous. The Cryomancer's stomach immediately turned, a queasy slick feeling like the moment before you throw up.

Then a hissing filled the air, a vast flight of arrows that arched up from the road before her where Edenian archers now raced towards them from Toluca, blocking the path. As if to answer them, Tarkatans emerged from caves on either side of them. Careless and bloodthirsty, they broke into a fearless run, shouting and snarling as some bolted towards the soldiers ahead while others swarmed towards the cart and the three travelers within it.

"The Tolucan Guards!" Erron shouted, though it seemed as if it was more for his benefit than the teenagers'. Even as he cried out, Tolucan arrows fell on the Tarkatans like hail, hundreds of arrows, thousands, and shouts turned to screams as the monsters stumbled and went down. By then, a second flight was in the air, and already the archers had fit a third round into their bows. The Cryomancer looked up at the flying missiles in trepidation, in awe of the unnaturally dark sky, wondering if they were in range. A second later, about five arrows whistled over their heads and lodged themselves in the barrels behind them. She yelped and looked at Erron in a helpless panic, but he was too focused on steering the cart and controlling the terrified animal pulling it.

And then a figure charged towards the slowing cart, bigger than any man Olivia had ever seen before, a figure in a sleeveless red tunic, with bony spikes jutting from his wrists and elbows and shoulders. Drool streamed in rivers around the Tarkatan's long fangs, and the creature roared at them as its massive arm blades exploded from the flesh. Its weapons moved so fast that they blurred in Olivia's eyesight, striking the poor reptilian beast pulling the cart. The animal roared a pained wail to match the Tarkatan's monstrous one, but that roar abruptly became a gurgle, and the huge shape toppled to the ground, throwing the cart onto its side.

Olivia vaguely heard herself scream as she found herself airborne. Before she even finished falling, more Tarkatans were on the wagon, clawing their way past the dead beast and the wood. The young Cryomancer landed hard in the hot dirt, hitting her tailbone hard. Grimacing in pain, she looked up in time to see a misshapen head full of fangs and topped with spike-like horns peek over the cart at her. But then, Erron, who had withdrawn both his .45s by this point, started firing, and at the speed of thought, a bullet plunged into the Tarkatans eye, instantly killing him.

"Run!" she heard the gunslinger yell at them both as all three scrambled out of the dust and onto their feet. Snarling Tarkatans were right behind them as they bolted. "Hide! I'll hold them off!"

Even as Olivia and Takeda obeyed, shame filled the Cryomancer that she obeyed so quickly. She wanted to stay and help the outlaw – though she could not imagine how, not without her powers – but fear had her by the throat, and her legs moved on their own. She and Takeda dashed from the wagon as fast as either had ever run in their life, heading towards the Tolucan soldiers. Crashes, coarse-voiced shouts in a strange tongue, and the sound of gunshots pursued them. A dozen huge forms streamed after them, their shrill howls cutting through the air.

The trumpets blared again, this time behind the melee, the _da-DAAAAA da-DAAAAA da-DAAAAA_ frightening Olivia even further. She dared to look behind, and on the hill overlooking Toluca, the same one the wagon sat upon earlier, she saw Reiko and Skarlet at the head of an even bigger contingent than the one that just attacked. General Reiko waved his huge scythe and bellowed a command, and a thousand other voices screamed back at him. The Tarkatans currently on the battlefield added more voices to the cacophony, and then the army surged forward.

"Toluca!" she shouted at Takeda as she bolted into the melee. "We have to get to the Mother Road!"

"I know!" he screamed back. His face was wrenched into a mask of panic. She suspected hers looked much the same way.

A crescent of Tolucan spearmen had formed close ahead, blocking the road further and protecting the archers, a porcupine of bristling steel, waiting behind tall wooden shields carved with ornate sunbursts. A huge Tarkatan was among the first to reach the guards, leading a wedge of his snarling companions. Half of them shied away at the last second, thinking twice about their assault, breaking their charge before the row of spears. The others died as sharp steel points ripped through their chests. Panting hard in time to her footfalls, Olivia saw at least a dozen of the monsters go down. One of them, however, reared back, lashing out with his arm blades as a barbed spearhead raked across his neck. Maddened, the Tarkatan lunged further into the ranks. Spears thrust at him from every side, but as he fell, snorting blood and snapping at them with his dying breath, he took out many more Tolucans.

More Tarkatans went bursting through the gap before the shields could close, and others were running hard behind them. More arrows descended upon them; where they came from she could not say, but they fell on Tolucan and Tarkatan alike, rattling off armor or finding flesh. One whizzed dangerously close to the Cryomancer, and in response, Olivia yanked Takeda into the shadow of a gnarled tree to shield them from the flying missiles.

And then a dusky-skinned, heavily armored giant of a man who loomed a head taller than even Olivia's father – a Tolucan, the Cryomancer quickly ascertained – stepped forward. He wore a long chainmail hauberk and gauntlets of lobstered steel, but he'd lost his helmet and blood ran down into his eyes from a gash across his forehead. He stopped just beyond their reach and then let his arms fall rigidly to his sides. Great iron whips bristling with fins of sharp barbs and blades slid from the underside of the vambraces that covered his forearms. Longer than a horse from head to tail, as thick around as Takeda's wrist, they rose and swayed in his control like twin cobras threatening to attack.

"Reiko sympathizers!" he screamed. "Die!"

And then the jagged whips stretched even farther from his wrists, then shot up and around, shredding flesh from Takeda and Olivia's backs as they dodged to the side. As both teenagers groaned – Olivia sucked air through her teeth as she batted weakly at her bloody backside – the whips wrapped themselves around the tree trunk that sheltered them, but they unwound so fast they sawed the thing completely in half. Takeda climbed to his feet before Olivia, who was unsuccessfully fighting the effects of the cobalt collar, and the boy took a swing at the much larger man's face, but the warrior easily knocked it aside.

"Die," the man repeated, whipping at the Shirai Ryu savagely.

Takeda barely grabbed the newly felled tree log, which was little more than a stump, and lifted it in time before the whips chopped down towards his head. It looked to Olivia as if the wood seemed to explode inward under the force of the blow, and then the shattered pieces fell away from his arm. The teenage boy cried out and staggered backwards.

"Die!" the man bellowed again as he shoved in close and punched Takeda across the temple so hard his head snapped to the side with a loud crunch. The whips made a frightening hiss as they cut through the air. The tall man grinned, certain of victory…until Olivia slammed his unsuspecting face with a jagged piece of log and branch, quick as a snake, ripping the cheek clear to the bone. He screamed and staggered, losing his grip on his whips, before the Cryomancer hit him again, this time burying the log in his skull.

" _You_ die," she growled at him, and he did.

When he fell to the ground, gray brain matter leaked from the wound around the wood, and Olivia trembled. The nausea she had felt earlier returned, only this time it wasn't from fear. It was from something else. And this time, it would not be contained. She collapsed to her knees in the dirt and began to puke.

Takeda, meanwhile, gathered up the whips, oblivious to her plight or to what just happened. "I'm taking these," he told her, not looking in her direction. "I think we'll need them."

As the Cryomancer wiped her mouth of bile, she heard a shout. "For General Reiko!" The voice was wet, burbling, like someone speaking through the scum congealed atop an old stew. "For General Reiko and Outworld!"

And then, a handful of Tarkatans charged towards them, and one barreled directly into the teenage girl, slamming into her before she could so much as open her mouth to shout for Takeda. Her right elbow exploded with pain as the stubby, bony spikes bit into the joint. A sickening _crunch_ , and then she was falling. She did not recall hitting the ground, but when she looked up, there was only dusky sky fading into night above her. She rolled onto her side and tried to find her feet, but pain shuddered through her and her whole body throbbed. The Tarkatan who had hurt her cockily looked her up and down. "You are mine, Earthrealmer," he growled. "I claim you for our Lord Reiko. Do you yield, Child?"

 _Yes_ , she weakly thought, but the word caught in her throat. She made a croaking sound and fought her way to her knees, fumbling for a weapon. Something, anything.

"Do you yield?" the Tarkatan roared, letting his arm blades explode from his forearms. Nearby, Takeda successfully warded off the warriors by flailing his new weapons around. But Olivia's hands were numb, her vision blurred, her powers gone. She didn't think she could fight anymore.

A shot rang out then, a deafening blast that cracked like thunder. A shower of blood and viscera instantly splattered Olivia's face, anointing her as the Tarkatan shrieked a hideous scream and staggered back. It tried to twist its way from the agony, but it failed, and then he fell like an avalanche towards her. The next thing the Cryomancer knew, her face and eyes were painted red and something was crushing her body. But she quickly wriggled free, her throat so tight she could scarcely talk, with Erron's help.

Olivia wiped the gore from her eyes so she could see again, and then she slowly pushed herself to her feet. Pain hammered through her elbow when Erron hooked his elbow around her arm and helped her. No one remained on this part of the battlefield save for a large number of corpses of Tarkatans and Tolucans alike. They looked eerie in the deepening twilight, their faces contorted in pain that revealed their final moments in perfect clarity, their open eyes glassy and vacant like dolls'. She saw that in the distance, Reiko had brought up his center in support of his vanguard; his huge horde of Tarkatans had pushed the Tolucans back against the city walls. They were struggling there, arm blades thrusting against a wall of wooden shields. As she watched in abject terror, the air filled with arrows once more, these ones glowing brightly with fire, and the monstrous Tarkatans crumbled beneath the murderous flames, as did the countryside as the fire swallowed it up.

"We're so screwed," she mumbled to herself, though her words sounded as if they had originated outside her body. "We're all gonna die."

"Don't worry, kid," Erron assured her as he reloaded his revolvers. "I've been in tighter spots than this."

With her elbow swollen and throbbing inside her clothes, the Cryomancer made no attempt to respond. There were plenty of dead bodies strewn about them to argue for her. A Tolucan lay in a pool of congealing blood, his arm gone at the elbow, a dozen of his friends sprawled around him, butchered. A Tarkatan was slumped beneath a dusty old tree, riddled with arrows, another Tarkatan's head in his lap. Nearby, more of the monstrous warriors were looting the bodies of the slain, and one was proudly showing off to his comrades a string of ears he'd just taken from his kills. No, they would _not_ be fine. _She_ would not be fine.

"You're hurt," Erron said a moment later as he nodded at her arm. She looked stupidly at her wounded elbow. Blood soaked through the black cloth and dribbled down her arm.

"It's just a scratch," she lied as she cradled it to her torso.

"Suit yourself, kid," he said.

"What now?" Takeda wondered. He carefully coiled his new toys into more portable lassos.

"They've blocked the way into Toluca," the gunslinger scowled. "It was our only way to the Mother Road and your parents."

Olivia stood there in stunned silence while Takeda grumbled curses under his breath. Her elbow sang songs of pain into her shoulder. She longed for her mom, who would make the pain all better, and she longed for Alex, who would hold her and make her believe everything was going to be alright again. She ached to feel his arms around her, hugging her in reassurance. Perhaps he'd kiss her forehead and tell her he loved her. But most of all, she longed for her father because she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he'd get her out of this place in one piece.

"I wish my parents were here," she nearly whispered. Without realizing it, hot tears began to stream down her blood-stained cheeks.

"Spit in one hand and wish in the other, then see which one gets fuller," Erron said without sympathy.

"Why did those city guards attack us?" Takeda now asked.

"I don't think it was us they were attacking at all," he drawled. "Reiko ransacked this place weeks ago. I think they was insuring he'd stay away this time. And I think they thought we were with him."

"So what are we going to do?" Olivia demanded to know. "We're trapped. It's only a matter of time before Reiko figures out we didn't get into the city. And there aren't a lot of places to hide out here."

Erron cast his gaze back towards the intimidating desert they'd just left behind, and then he swore under his breath as he put his hands on his hips. "We head back the way we came," he finally told her. "I know the way through the desert to get to Z'Unkarah, and more importantly, I know how to survive out there. You'll be safe with the Kahn until your folks come to round you up."

Olivia dropped her head and let out an exasperated sigh of defeat. "We don't have the proper supplies to travel through the desert. And I don't have my powers-"

"We don't have a choice, kid," he interrupted. "It's our best bet."

"Can't we go around on the north side of it?" Takeda suggested.

"Sure," he agreed. "But not only is that territory crawling with Tarkatans and Zaterrans, it'll be a good month before we reach Z'Unkarah." Olivia started to argue more with him, but he abruptly cut her off. "End of discussion," he barked. "Find some fresh clothes. The Tolucans' clothing is better suited to desert travel than your Shirai Ryu robes. And find something to use for a blanket. It'll be cold at night." He thought about it. "And grab some weapons."

Takeda immediately went to work doing just what Erron had commanded, but as the gunslinger also started looking around, Olivia just stood there in stubborn silence. She didn't want to go back to the desert. Not without her powers to protect her. She just wanted to go home to Arctika where it was cold and safe and predictable. She understood it well and knew what to expect. And her family was there, as were her friends. This desert…it was strange and frightening and big, and it was that vastness that scared her. Everything looked too far away, even the cloudless sky. There was no place she could hide in such emptiness.

Her sudden melancholy was not lost on Erron, who looked up with eyes flecked in annoyance. "Do what I say, kid," he snapped. "I don't want to shoot you but I will." She looked at him as tears now streamed down her face more freely, but still she did not move – _could not_ move. "Do you want those Tarkatans to see us?" he asked her pointedly. Finally, she shook her head no. "Then do what I say."

Olivia swallowed hard but said nothing. She looked down at one of the dead Tolucans – an archer – and she gingerly stooped down and gathered up his bow and nearly-full quiver of arrows. His eyes stared at her, blank and accusing and yet somehow, piercing the depths of her soul. At the thought, Olivia felt a sudden shudder of self-pity that was almost pleasurable, a complete expression of her mood at the moment. It was a physical shudder; she was alone, abandoned, lost, hopeless, cold. Cold especially. It was a deep, interior cold that felt like it would never be warm again, and it wore that man's face, the man whose skull she'd bashed in, the man she'd killed. Although it was the instigator of her sadness, she would cling to it always.

Solemnly, she began to gather the things Erron had requested.

* * *

 **PunkRoseBlitz, no worries, my friend! I know life gets chaotic sometimes. Boy, do I ever! Oh, and here are some tissues. ;)**

 **Tanturtle, well, thank you very much! I'm glad you think so!**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, oh, I know. I can't hog all the credit for that dream sequence, though. Obelisk of Light really added some solid input. Yes, it was definitely time for Smoke to call out Subby. I mean, a parent will only take so much before they jump in to protect their kid, even if said kid is 20 like Alex. Subby is definitely struggling with his little Ice Princess growing up, and that was why in his dream, she was still a little girl. It's probably one of the hardest things he'll ever face in his life, truthfully. So, that's why he's so stubborn.**

 **DarkAssassin15, I agree. That was definitely a cruel thing for Subby to say to Alex, even in anger. But hate is a very real emotion, and I wanted to convey that in order to make him feel more real. It must've worked if you felt such a strong reaction to it! ;)**

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, what do you mean you hope this is a test? Like, how could it be a test?**

 **ROCuevas, hopefully!**

 **Obelisk of Light, thanks, I'm glad I did your suggestions justice :) Yeah, he's being stubborn and willfully blind when it comes to Olivia. Dads are like that, methinks. He and Anya are talking, but they're still far from patched up, relationship-wise. But, you'll see. It'll get better.**

 **Guest, well, it's going to be a while before Olivia and Alex are together. She has to overcome her trials and temptations in the desert first ;)**

 **iceangelmkx, definitely glad you did Bon Jovi and not Bieber. His voice reminds me of a cat with its juevos in a vice! Oops, I think I may have just offended someone...*rolls eyes* Well, I'm sure, given as long as Subby and Smoke have been friends, that Smoke _will_ forgive him for his remark. But he's going to be mad at him for quite a while, I can promise you that. And he should be. That was pretty cold, even for a guy who controls the cold!**

 **en-lumine, I think you meant to say Olivia instead of Cassie LOL It's okay, I've done that before myself :) Oh, I'm glad you like the way I've been writing Erron. I've been so worried about my characterization of him. I have some ideas for Kenshi and Takeda, especially when Olivia and Takeda are in the desert, going through a very Biblical sort of rebirth. You know, the whole 40 days, 40 nights thing? I image he'll have some revelations about his dad. But, you'll have to wait for that ;) I'm glad the nightmare sequence had you all teary eyed. That's what I was going for; I was trying to capture the pain of losing a child, especially when you suspect it's your fault they're dead.**


	16. On the Road to Toluca

**Author's Note: I'd like to give a warm thanks to my friends, DarkAssassin15, Obelisk of Light, Hell-On-Training-Wheels, en-lumine, and iceangelmkx, for giving me ideas, suggestions, and insights for this update. Go check out their respective stories! You won't be sorry! :)**

 **This chapter has very little action in it, but I hope you enjoy it regardless.**

* * *

Lying on a sweat-soaked blanket, Kuai Liang realized that the darkness was turning to gray. Soon, the sun would be edging above the horizon. Morning. A time for new hopes; a time to be hunting for Olivia. New hopes. He almost laughed at that, and bitterly. How long had he been awake? An hour or so, he guessed. His nightmares about Livy dying had cruelly persisted. And the night had passed painfully slow. Anya was ignoring him again. Hell, everyone was ignoring him. To hell with them, he bitterly thought. He didn't need them. He just needed to find his daughter.

"Kuai Liang," he heard Hanzo's deep voice call to him.

The Cryomancer immediately sat up and looked around, vaguely noticing how the others still slept and hadn't stirred at the Shirai Ryu's beckoning. He spotted his old friend sitting a short distance from the campfire, out of earshot of the others, close to the river. He had made a smaller fire, and over it cooked a couple of pots. The tang of grilled fish met Kuai Liang's nostrils, and as his stomach growled, he realized just how hungry he was. He hadn't eaten one bite since he'd learned of Livy's disappearance.

"Join me," the aging ninja said. It was more of a command, not a request.

With a heavy sigh, the Grandmaster got to his feet and trudged towards him with drooped eyes. "What is it, Hanzo?" he asked.

"Sit," the other said as he gestured towards the dirt. "Eat with me."

Kuai Liang silently obeyed and sat on his knees across the fire from his friend, studying the contents of the pot. Some kind of creamed rice seasoned with cinnamon and other spices bubbled away, and in the frying pan beside it, pieces of fish slowly blackened. Hanzo immediately scooped a ladle full of the rice into a metal mess bowl, and then carefully set a filet onto it. The Cryomancer waited for the Shirai Ryu Grandmaster to serve himself, and then both men began eating.

"My father was a stern man," the ninja began. "But he used to say that if more people placed greater value on feasting with friends than they do on money and power, the world would be a better place."

The Grandmaster raised an eyebrow. "Is something bothering you, Hanzo?" Kuai Liang asked after he swallowed a spoonful of sweet rice. He liked the flavor, and hungrily shoveled more into his mouth.

The Shirai Ryu solemnly nodded. "I am concerned for you. You are spiraling out of control. I have never seen you like this save once."

The Cryomancer stared at him dispassionately. "Oh?" he said in a monotone voice.

"When years ago, your wife was taken prisoner by Shang Tsung and Quan Chi, and given to Rain as payment for his services," he elaborated.

Kuai Liang stiffened, thinking of the Hydromancer traitor who was once obsessed with Anya, even until the second he died at Kailyn's hands. He hadn't thought of that bastard – whose skeleton was currently mounted to the gate at Tlachtga – in years. He could've gone the rest of his life without ever hearing that name again. But now that Hanzo had mentioned him, irritation surged through his blood.

"My child was _kidnapped_ , Hanzo," he growled. "And Reiko threatened to torture and kill her if Kenshi doesn't hand over the location of Shinnok's amulet. So yes, I'm a bit tense. The prospect of my daughter being brutally murdered by a madman does that to me. And I thought _you_ , of all people, would understand that."

The ninja stared at him, unmoved. "I _do_ understand that, Kuai Liang," he said. "But you are losing the confidence of your teammates, and worse, you are losing the confidence of your students. Their chief want is someone who will inspire them to be what they know they can be. But all you have inspired in them is fear and resentment, and especially in Alexander."

"I don't _care_ about the opinion of that…that…traitor!" he snapped as he threw his dish into the dirt after the ice that involuntarily creeped into his hands began to freeze it. "He took my daughter from me. So his opinion of me counts for nothing."

"This is ridiculous!" his friend barked. "You are too proud! I should leave this group and find the children myself! I don't need you." He paused and glared at the Cryomancer as he slowly inhaled through his nose to calm himself, the immediate regret at his words apparent on his face.

It was a vicious slap in the face, even as Kuai Liang reflected on his behavior and knew he had it coming. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Hanzo," he coldly replied, though he felt his nostrils flare in fiery anger. Let the Shirai Ryu Grandmaster set out on his own. Let him face Reiko again, and die this time. But then, the Cryomancer shook his head in disgust at his dark thoughts. No, they were stronger as a team. And Hanzo – even when he was the hellspawn, Scorpion – never gave him bad counsel. He needed to stay calm and listen.

Hanzo sighed. "We are stronger when we work together," he said as if he'd read his mind. "I do not wish to leave this company. But I also do not want you to continue behaving so disgracefully. You are a leader, Kuai Liang. And the first key to leadership is self-control, particularly the mastery of pride, which is something more difficult to subdue than a wild lion, and more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. If you can't swallow your pride, you can't hope to lead."

"And what would you have me do?" he hissed back, a wounded animal. "Tell me, Hanzo, because I don't know what to do. I…" A painful ball of needles choked out his voice. "Do you want me to forget that Olivia is missing?" he croaked a few seconds later. "To just ignore this… _emptiness_ I feel?" He dropped his chin to his chest, fighting down a thousand different emotions that swirled around his thoughts of her.

Hanzo looked at him with sudden sympathy. "When one person is missing, the whole world feels empty," he told him. "But a Grandmaster never shows his despair because he does not have the luxury. He must instill confidence in his warriors. He is their rock, their stability. He must lead them forward, even into the mouth of death, at great personal sacrifice. He can never show weakness or vulnerability. He must be in control of his pain and his anger at all times lest his warriors lose all faith in his ability to lead."

"That is _rich_ coming from the man who sold his soul to the Devil after _his_ family was murdered," he growled.

Hanzo perceptibly tensed, and for a brief moment, the fire of Scorpion flashed in his eyes. But it was gone as quickly as it had come, and he nodded his head in agreement. "Grief sometimes makes monsters of us," he quietly admitted. "I was foolish to go down that path, Kuai Liang. I know that now. But _because_ I know that, I can save you from the same torment I endured."

Kuai Liang didn't answer him, so he continued: "A man can only lead when others accept him as their leader, and he only has as much authority as his warriors give to him. All of the brilliant ideas in the world cannot save your clan if no one will listen to them. So keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others so that they may trust and listen to you. That is how a _true_ Grandmaster behaves."

A long silence followed as the Cryomancer contemplated his words, but finally Kuai Liang spoke. "I feel like I'm never going to see her again. Like I'm never going to have another snowball fight with her, or a sparring match, or an argument. God," he scoffed. "I'd give anything just to hear her argue with me again." He buried his face in his hands. "But there's nothing and I just can't take it."

"I know what it is like to lose a child, Kuai Liang," the Grandmaster said gently. "I would not wish that pain on anyone."

"I'm afraid I'm going to find out what that pain is like," he confessed. "And even if, by some miracle, we find her, I'm _still_ going to lose her to _him_." Kuai Liang scowled when he thought about Alex sleeping close to the fire, as if he had the _right_ to be there. He shook his head. "Oh, who am I kidding?" he muttered as he looked away. "I've already lost her to him."

"You're not angry with Alexander," he argued. "Not really." Kuai Liang said nothing, and merely looked at Hanzo for an explanation. "You're not blaming Alexander for courting your daughter, you're not blaming Reiko for kidnapping her or me for failing to protect her. You're blaming _yourself_ for this situation. You're angry with yourself, and you're projecting your anger onto Alexander because he's a convenient scapegoat."

"I _should_ blame myself," he snapped. "I should have listened to her more, I should have paid attention to her, I shouldn't have betrayed her and sent her away, I-" He trailed off and then looked at his friend directly in the eyes. "Her life could very well end soon," he barely whispered. "And the last time we spoke, she hated me, and she left thinking I hated her. You saw how she looked at me. You know. It just…it just can't end like that."

Hanzo sighed. "Seeing what scares you for what it is does not lessen the terror or the pain," he said. "It still has the power to break your heart, over and over again." Now he looked away as sadness filled his eyes, and Kuai Liang knew he was thinking of his long-dead wife and son.

"And how do I conquer this fear?" he wondered, suddenly aware of just how tired he felt.

Hanzo thought about it. "Tell your heart that fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the ninja finally counseled. "And eat some more food," he said as he gestured towards the half-frozen dish on the ground. "You'll need your strength when you fight against Reiko. We're not young men anymore."

For the first time in days, Kuai Liang actually smiled and softly chuckled as he retrieved his dish, dumped out the cold food, and held it to Hanzo for a new helping. "No, old friend, I suppose we're not."

* * *

Kenshi woke shortly after Kuai Liang did with an ache in his shoulder from sleeping on it wrong, and a knot in his belly that wouldn't go away no matter how hard he willed it so. It was about Takeda. Every moment his son was gone tormented him until he was sick, but like a stubborn mule, he forced himself to trudge ever forward through the dust and the heat, feeling the angry sun beat down on him until his face around his blindfold was red and raw. He would never quit looking for his son; not while he drew breath and while there was still hope. He _had_ to find him before Reiko's three day ultimatum expired. So he rolled his arm around in its socket like a windmill to loosen it up, and then he got up to eat and begin his day.

Whenever he was awake, he had frequently seen Takeda's childish face as he last remembered it in his mind's eye, his amber eyes accusing him of abandoning him, making him cringe inside. He'd done it to protect him, he tried to convince himself. He was safer with Hanzo than on the run with him, fleeing like a criminal from the Red Dragon and Mavado, his mother's killer. But a part of Kenshi nagged at him like an uncomfortable reminder; did hereally leave Takeda with Hanzo for his sake, or for his own?

The sleep he'd managed, in contrast, had been broken and fitful. When the swordsman dreamed, he dreamed of Takeda mounting a gallows, and him watching, or worse, trying to stop it, trying to fight while they fitted the noose around his son's neck, screaming because Reiko was killing him. Sometimes, Reiko, whose face was shrouded in shadow by a black hood, watched his Tarkatans hang him with arms crossed in satisfaction, and he leaned forward in anticipation as Takeda fell, caught by the rope, his neck cracking loudly as it jerked him back. Once, Kenshi had dreamed of the Earthrealm Champions running out of the desert to save him – only to be spitted on Tarkatan arm blades or shot down by Edenian arrows. Small wonder his dreams woke him with a start.

Fastening his scabbard to his back, Kenshi paused, cocking his head towards Kuai Liang as the man rolled up his blankets into a neat bundle. His friend was handling his daughter's disappearance even worse than he was Takeda's. He was plagued by nightmares as well, but for the first time since the swordsman had ever known him, the Cryomancer was out of control, verging on panicked. The other Champions were sick of his behavior and close to mutiny, but Kenshi was not. He understood his friend's pain and fear. If he was being honest with himself, he wasn't quite certain how he was maintaining his own composure so well.

Soon after a breakfast of Hanzo's sweet rice, the Earthrealm Champions were hurriedly walking towards Toluca once again. The riverbank to their right slid by quickly as the sun climbed into the sky, and sometimes even the loud bubbling and swooshing drew Kenshi's attention. With Sento's help, he saw that to their left, there was the occasional cluster of adobe farmhouses and barns, bleak and lonely, appearing and vanishing in the distance. There were no villages, though. Fujin had explained to them it was because Toluca would not allow even the smallest village on the river to crop up, for even the tiniest might one day become competition to the great desert city, and it could steal valuable resources from them.

The sun poured light and heat upon Kenshi's face as it rose, and as he began to feel the subtle sting of a mild burn flicker across his cheeks, he began to think on Reiko's ultimatum once more. Fujin was right; one life was not worth more than billions of lives. Furthermore, he barely knew the boy. He could understand Kuai Liang's attachment to Olivia and his desire to save her, but Kenshi felt no such bond with his son. They had only spent a few days together several years prior. So how could he possibly justify trading Takeda's life for the lives of countless others?

But on the other hand, Takeda was all that remained of Suchin, his precious Suchin, and Kenshi wasn't anxious to let that go.

The swordsman found that his thoughts turned decidedly selfish at the memory of her. The universe had all but stolen her from him. He'd dedicated his life to protecting Earthrealm and bringing evildoers to justice, and it was that dedication that cost her _her_ life. Had he been there, perhaps she would still be alive today, and Takeda would love him, not hate the very thought of him. Perhaps he _would_ have a special bond with the teenage boy, his son. Her death though…That had been his reward for all of his sacrifices in life. So why _should_ he listen to Fujin? Why _shouldn't_ he save his son and perhaps try to make amends with him? Why _shouldn't_ he take the reward he so rightfully deserved?

Subtly, he shook his head in disgust at himself. He couldn't think like that. It was wrong and Suchin would be ashamed. That was not the man she fell in love with, he admonished.

He supposed he was just furious with himself. Ever since she'd died in his arms, he'd tortured himself with the 'what if' game. _What if_ he could've settled down and just left this covert operative nonsense for people like Sonya? _What if_ Suchin's mother had approved of him and not driven him away with talk of what was best for her? _What if_ Suchin had just told him from the beginning that she was pregnant with Takeda instead of waiting until he was nearly eight years old? _What if_?

It didn't help that through Sento, the voices of his ancestors argued constantly about his predicament, screaming so loudly in his head that it took every shred of his power just to reduce their noise to a whisper. Most of them agreed with Fujin; no matter what Kenshi selfishly _wanted_ to do, he had to put others before himself. He could not taint his soul with the blood of billions for just one boy. One of his ancestors – much to his chagrin – told him he could always have more children when Takeda was gone. What, then, was one boy to the fate of the Realms?

 _But he is your blood_ , a feminine voice immediately and blessedly countered. _You must save him. You cannot abandon him to his fate_.

 _I don't want to abandon him again_ , Kenshi told them all, surprised at himself when he did. He had relayed the message from his heart without thought, without logic, and he knew then how he truly felt about the boy. _He is my reward_ , he told them a few moments later. _He is my treasure. A gift to me from Suchin_.

The voices of his ancestors went quiet after that.

As Kenshi tormented himself with thoughts of Suchin and Takeda, his bat-like ears suddenly caught sounds on the road up ahead, on the south side of the river. He stiffened, and he could tell he was not alone in his tension; his comrades halted in their path as well. There was shouting, and among them, to his horror, he could distinguish the harsh voices of the Tarkatans. Then suddenly a loud horn blew, long and droning, and the blast of it echoed through the hills, rising like the howl of a wolf underneath a full moon.

"What is it?" Morgan asked nervously, looking to Fujin for an explanation while everyone withdrew their weapons. She clutched her Falcata spear anxiously.

"Tarkatans," he told her, glancing at her. Then he rested his hand on her shoulder to ease her apparent nervousness. "Stay close to me," he commanded. "And no matter what happens, stay calm."

She nodded her head solemnly in response.

The screaming came louder, but the horn blew more faintly now. The Tarkatans' yells rose fiercely, and then suddenly the horn-calls ceased. Kuai Liang yanked a kori sword from the ether and then impulsively took off running. As he raced towards the noise, the others closely followed. But before they could make it to the battle, the sounds of combat died away, soon fading altogether until at last, Kenshi could hear them no more. Drawing Sento from the scabbard on his back, the swordsman bolted down a steep hill on the road, quickly catching up to the Grandmaster.

A half a mile, maybe, from where they first heard the noise, they found a massacre and only one survivor remained. _An Edenian_ , Kenshi heard his ancestors whisper as one. _From Toluca_.

The soldier was sitting with his back to a large but parched tree as if he was resting. But he was gravely wounded by several stab wounds undoubtedly made by Tarkatan arm blades; his bow laid uselessly at his side, his quiver spilling arrows around him, and his horn was smashed into pieces at his feet. Many Tarkatans had been riddled with arrows or cleaved into pieces by sharp weapons, and their bodies were haphazardly strewn about the man, but many more of the Tolucans had been butchered, their bodies mingling with the enemy. Kenshi heard Morgan choke down vomit and then cough through revolted tears at the carnage while Tomas gently patted her back to help her breathe; clearly, this was her first taste of _real_ violence.

Kuai Liang ignored her and knelt by the man, who gazed at him while he struggled to breathe. "Who are you?" the Cryomancer asked him as Anya knelt on his opposite side. She immediately held her hand, palm-down, above the soldier's heart; the right, with fingers curled towards the sky, somehow drawing power from it. _That's new_ , Kenshi vaguely thought. It was probably something that Himavat had taught her.

The man fought to speak, but at last slow words came. "Supposed to warn the Emperor," he wheezed.

"Warn him about what?"

"General Reiko has attacked Toluca…His Tarkatan horde is destroying the city as we speak."

"Why?" he demanded to know.

"He's looking for the children," the man gasped, though his breathing had begun to come easier thanks to Anya. "Two children…stolen from him."

Suddenly, he had everyone's undivided attention. Adrenaline instantly surged through Kenshi's blood as hope and fear bloomed in his heart in equal measure. A dark shadow crossed his face as he snarled, "What children? What do you mean?"

"I do not know…who…they belong to," he croaked. "But I saw them outside of Toluca…in the first attack…crossing…through the Gates of Hell. They were…caught in the battle…I do not think they meant to be there."

"What did they look like?" he now asked, his heart thumping hard in his chest. The man weakly shook his head in response, so the swordsman cocked his head to the Hydromancer Healer. "Anya?" he asked, knowing she could see inside the soldier's head. "Was it them?"

She calmly exhaled and closed her eyes, concentrating hard. With Sento's help, he saw her wrenching her face into an ugly mask as she tried to sift through the memories. A fragment, the tiniest sliver, of the soldier's soul swept into her mind, pulled in by the Hydromancer's psychometric powers. And though the memory was chaotic, and bled away at the edges like an old photograph, she saw what she needed to know and her eyes fluttered open.

"It was them," she said, breathing a sigh of relief, unable to contain her smile or the happy tears in her eyes. "Erron Black was with them. They were taking clothes and weapons from corpses and then they were running towards the desert."

"If General Reiko wants them so badly that he would destroy a city," the soldier said, his wounds rapidly knitting shut, "then they are in grave danger. He will send his entire army across the desert to find them and retrieve them."

"But at least they have a fighting chance now, and they're going to be safe," Morgan said, also smiling as she looked at Alex in sudden excitement. He didn't seem as happy as she did, Kenshi couldn't help but notice.

"Not so fast," Fujin said at the same time Kailyn said, "That is not necessarily true."

The young Hydromancer warrior's face fell and she looked at her parents in confusion, so Kailyn stepped forward. "Many stories are told of the Sea of Despair," she told her daughter as she rested her hand on her back and looked her in the eye. "None are good. It is a haunted place where dangerous creatures and spirits roam free."

"And there are countless natural dangers as well," Fujin added. "They're not safe by any means." He sighed as Morgan frowned in worry and then looked at her feet. So he cupped her chin in his palm and made her look him in the eye. "But Erron Black leads them, and he's their best hope for them getting through the Red Land safely. The Emperor has faith in him. Remember? He said that Erron knows the desert well."

"Okay," she said, though her tone sounded far from convinced.

Kenshi hardly heard any of this discussion. His mind was on Takeda, who, for the moment, was free of Reiko. He breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't have to choose between sacrificing his son, or saving him.

"Reiko _will_ send people after them," Kuai Liang said. "And they won't stand a chance if he catches up to them. So what do we do?"

"Yes," Hanzo agreed, nodding his head. "It is obvious they are no longer heading towards Toluca. So we should not either. We must follow them."

"You're proposing we go into the desert?" Tomas asked hesitantly. "We're not prepared for that."

"If my daughter can do it with no supplies whatsoever, then so can we," Kuai Liang snapped at him, getting to his feet. "And we will. We're going to follow them." As Tomas glowered at him like an angry dog, the Grandmaster looked at Fujin. "What is the fastest way into the desert?"

The Wind God sighed heavily and looked towards the river. "About forty miles from here, there is a bridge across the Tinemilizameyali River, and a natural path through that ridge," he told them. "It'll take us directly into the desert."

"I don't understand why you can't just carry us over that ridge," he said. "I know you can do that."

"You're right, Kuai Liang, I could," Fujin tersely answered. "But immediately on the other side of that ridge is a vast lava field that is constantly erupting. The gases are toxic and scalding hot, and you'd die in an instant. That gateway into the desert that I just told you about? It is just past the end of this field."

The Cryomancer said nothing, but slightly nodded his understanding at his cousin. "Very well," he said demurely. Kenshi couldn't be sure, but he thought he sensed Hanzo nod his approval at their comrade. "Then let's get moving," he suggested a moment later. "We have to find them before Reiko does."

* * *

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, oh, I see what you're saying. Well, perhaps I already _was_ going to do that. Or not. You'll have to see ;) **

**Westcoast Witchdoctor, I've never seen _The Warriors,_ so I'll have to take your word for it LOL But the group, especially Livy, is going to have a rough time of it. I kept thinking of the Bible and a lot of other allegorical stories that involve the hero/heroine having to go into the desert to be reborn. It's a common theme in literature, and that's my intent with her. She is reborn as a better person in the desert. But first, she must face her metaphorical Devil and overcome all the obstacles she faces. So killing that dude? That was the first one. As for Erron and Takeda, I'm glad you liked that moment. I just got this idea of a quirk that Takeda has. I mean, Americans fantasize about what cultures are like elsewhere, so why couldn't someone from a different culture fantasize about what the Wild West was like? It just seemed like a neat idea to me LOL**

 **DarkAssassin15, thanks. I hate it when I read fan-fics where someone kills someone for the first time, but it doesn't affect them at all. Research and testimony on the matter has shown that even if the person had a really good reason for killing another, it still does a number on them emotionally. I plan to explore that more in future chapters. Thank you for the suggestion about Hanzo talking sense into Kuai Liang. I hope you enjoyed that scene :)**

 **ROCuevas, thanks!**

 **Obelisk of Light, LOL Takeda _is_ somewhat of a fanboy. I mean, if _you_ got to meet Richard Epcar, how would _you_ feel? ;) **

**iceangelmkx, like I told DarkAssassin15, thank you for the suggestion about Hanzo talking to Kuai Liang. I hope it proved to be an interesting conversation. I struggled with it, as you know. Haha that guy that Olivia killed? He was a big dude, and I kept thinking of Groot from _Guardians of the Galaxy_ , who just kept saying the same thing over and over. That's why that guy just kept saying "Die" over and over. I'll gradually reveal more of Erron's back story as we go along. You'll have to wait and see who Shang Tsung hired him to kill ;) **

**PunkRoseBlitz, thank you! You'll get to see more of that as the story moves along :)**

 **Hell-On-Training-Wheels, it's okay, life happens. But I graciously accept any and all baked goods LOL I wish I could teach you the secret to writing descriptions, but as I reflected on the answer to give you, it occurred to me that I don't know _how_ I do it. I just do. I can tell you, though, it takes years of practice learning to balance it. I'm glad my description of Kuai Liang's dream and his conversation with Anya ripped your proverbial heart out. I enjoy doing that, you know LOL As I've told everyone else, you'll get to see some of Erron's Billy the Kid stories. Just be patient, my young Padawan XD**

 **en-lumine, it's okay, like I told you, it's happened to me before too LOL Oh, my goodness, the idea of Jacqui and Takeda as a cowgirl/cowboy couple at a rodeo cracks me up. You should write that! Maybe they can go square-dancing XD Yeah, you know me. I try to incorporate things like "how Takeda got his whips" into my stories. I'm glad you liked my explanation. As for the desert? I have a lot of _nasty_ things in mind for them. Muah hahaha!**


	17. The Plains of Death

"Well, we're screwed," Takeda muttered. He stood despondently with hunched shoulders beside Olivia, whose thoughts were mostly on the man she'd killed, and gazed onto the sandy dunes below; a few miles away, tumbling plains where grass actually grew laid in wait in eerie silence, with only a gently whistling wind blowing through the tall, gray stalks.

"Yeah," the Cryomancer mumbled tiredly as she cradled her wounded elbow. It was hot and stiff beneath the gauzy white shirt she lifted off a fallen Tolucan Guard, and it throbbed unbearably into her wrist and her shoulder. When she'd changed clothes on the battlefield, she'd looked at it. Several significant holes punctured the flesh around the joint, and could probably use stitches. She didn't know how in the hell she was supposed to shoot her stolen bow if need be.

God, she missed her mother.

It had only been a day since she, Takeda, and Erron had fled from the battlefield near Toluca, but she could not discern the exact time; she had lost count of the hours she had climbed and hiked up and down the shifting, hot dunes, dead on her feet, forcing herself to take the next step, trying to ignore the blistering heat as it scorched her face. The cobalt collar grew hot as the day wore on, prompting a burn and a heat rash to crop up on her neck, both of which stung miserably because her skin was sticky with sweat. It sapped her strength and her will to live, and the only thing that kept her from dropping face first in the sand was the thought of her family and friends back in Arctika, and her father's voice in her head pushing her to fight through the pain.

The travelers now stood on the brink of a tall cliff, bare and bleak, surrounded on all sides by golden sand. A hot wind blew in from the east. Night was gathering over the shapeless lands before them; the pale yellow was gradually fading into a dull brown. Nobody dared to look behind them and from where they came. Instead, they stared ahead at that strange landscape full of tall grass and a line of shadows like motionless smoke. But as she gazed at the darkening desert, she began to feel lightheaded.

"What is this place, Mr. Black?" Takeda asked.

"The Plains of Death," he said as he put his hands on his hips. "Stay close to me, you two," he then ordered. "No wandering off. Sometimes nasty creatures creep around that grass, and there's lightning sand everywhere."

"Lightning sand?" Olivia murmured as the edges of her vision bled into black. Her head felt far too heavy.

"Quicksand," he amended. "Only it sucks you down faster."

"That's lovely," Takeda drily remarked.

"Told ya to stay close," the gunslinger said dispassionately. His voice began to sound as if it were underwater, Olivia thought.

And then her legs were collapsing beneath her, yanking her hard towards the edge of the cliff as her vision blacked out entirely. She was asleep, but not. Takeda yelped and then a strong arm wrapped itself around her and pulled her back. And still, she couldn't see. Her head sagged towards the rock, but she was unaware of it.

"Olivia!" Takeda cried from somewhere far away.

"Come on kid," she heard Erron's voice gently drawl through her mind like a dream. It was followed by a soft smack to her cheek. "Snap out of it."

Water suddenly poured down her throat and brought back her vision. Olivia choked it down, coughing and sputtering as it slid into her lungs on accident. Through her stinging tears, she saw Erron holding her across his lap as he knelt on the ground, and her classmate standing behind his shoulder with a horrified expression on his face. She coughed a little more and then weakly wilted into the gunslinger's chest, longing for her mother once again.

"I feel sick," she whimpered as she fidgeted with the collar, trying to pull it free of her skin. Her fingers were too weak to grip anything, though, and her hand limply fell to her stomach.

"You don't say," was Erron's sarcastic response.

"You almost fell off the cliff," the teenage boy said.

"It's that collar," he explained to him as he lifted Olivia into his arms. "Sappin' her strength. Especially since she's hurt. Let's get to the bottom, and then we'll make camp for the night. I reckon we could all use the rest anyway."

"Why can't we just stay up here and make camp?" Takeda wanted to know as the mercenary carried her towards a path to the bottom. "Seems safer."

"Well, we could," he began. "But then we couldn't have a fire. Reiko would spot it in a heartbeat."

"It's the desert," the other argued. "It's hot as hell. Why do we even need a fire?"

"To keep things from messing with us while we sleep," he said.

"What things?"

" _Things_ ," he tersely replied. He looked at Takeda in disgust. "Didn't they teach you _anything_ in that Temple of yours?"

"Taught me how to take down low-life criminals," the boy shot back pointedly.

Undaunted, Erron said, "I'll be sure they tattoo that on your corpse."

Olivia barely listened to their bickering. She was fading in and out of consciousness, dreaming about her mother. Anya didn't always use her healing powers to help the young Cryomancer, particularly when she was sick; the nurse believed that letting the kids get exposed to germs trained their immune systems to fight infection when there were no Hydromancer Healers around to conveniently cure them. But she always healed Olivia's injuries no matter what, and it was her face that her daughter saw now, her lavender eyes closed in concentration as she laid her hands on the afflicted area, her touch comforting and soft. Olivia dreamed of that warming sensation, that feeling of an ocean wave on a hot summer day washing over her body, foaming around it gently. But this time, it wasn't real, and when Erron leaned her on a dune, the pain, the weakness, and the sickness returned in full force.

"Let's take a look at your elbow, kid," the gunslinger said.

"It's nothing, really," she tiredly replied.

She was too weak to argue, though, so when Erron grabbed her right arm anyway and rolled up her shirt sleeve, she couldn't do a damn thing about it. He studied it closely for a minute, and then poured a little bit of the water from his animal skin onto it to wash away the dirt and blood. He used the edge of his cloak like a rag, and the Cryomancer winced and hissed through her teeth as he wiped it clean. Then he pulled something from a small pouch hanging from his belt. It was a piece of a cactus leaf – minus the needles – that had gone slightly dry. Olivia watched in curiosity as he tore it in half and then squeezed it hard with his thumb like a tube of toothpaste; as he did, thick, viscous juice dribbled onto the wounds, and when the cactus could produce no more, he rubbed it into her skin.

"That should help," he said when he was finished.

"What was that?" she wondered.

"Nopal," he told her, looking her in the eye. "It'll help stop the infection and take the swelling down. It's not a cure-all, kid, but it's better than nothing."

"Thank you, Mr. Black," she told him.

He grunted in response and then looked at Takeda. "Keep an eye on her," he commanded.

"Why, where are _you_ going?" the boy demanded to know as Olivia started to drift off to sleep.

"Huntin'," he replied. "Saw some buzzards circling not too far from here. Gonna go get us some supper. I'm gonna gather up some ghost grass to burn for a fire too."

"You can't leave us alone," he complained.

"Watch me," he retorted, and he turned and marched away, further into the Plains of Death.

* * *

The Dragon Gate of Toluca was made of two heavy wooden doors bound with straps of black iron, and carved into the adobe on the outside were two gigantic dragons, rearing, their wings meeting a hundred feet above the roadway to form a pointed arch. Currently, they were swung open to allow the triumphant Tarkatans and Edenians passage inside.

As Reiko marched victoriously through the gate, flanked by Skarlet and fifty of his best Edenian warriors, two of his Tarkatans dragged a battered and bloodied man, skinny like a weasel, towards him. Though the man could not possibly match the Tarkatans' strength, let alone overcome it, he fought anyway, struggling and flailing like a child being made to sit in a corner for punishment. Amused, Reiko grinned wolfishly at him, even though the man continued to fight his guards.

"Calm yourself," he said. "These Tarkatans will never let you go without my say-so. Relax, and save your strength!"

"How _dare_ you?" the man snarled. "I am Mazatl, the Lord of Toluca, proclaimed as much by the Emperor himself!"

Reiko sneered. "You'll forgive me, _Lord_ , if I don't bow," he chided.

"I have sent word to the Emperor Koa'tal of this attack," he defiantly hissed, still struggling against the Tarkatans. "He will not tolerate this unprovoked attack on one of his cities!"

"I am not concerned with what the False Emperor thinks," he said.

"You will not have his throne, no matter how many cities you ransack!"

Reiko chuffed at that. "It is not his throne I am after," he said.

The man looked at him with bushy gray eyebrows raised. "Just kill me and be done with it," he said.

"I'm not here to put you out of your misery. Not yet," he smiled.

"Then what do you want?"

"Merely information," he said.

"You attacked Toluca merely to get information?" he growled, his face flushing red with anger.

"I have reason to believe you're harboring two runaway children – nearly adults – in Toluca," Reiko said, ignoring the accusation. "They were likely accompanied by the Emperor's mercenary, Erron Black. What do you know of that?"

"I know nothing," he lied. The way he averted his eyes was unmistakable.

"Are you testing me?" he asked, his smile fading. "Because I am not amused by it."

"Hundreds of people enter and leave this city every day," Mazatl hissed. "How should I know if these children you seek came through?"

"You lost the battle, Mazatl," the General growled, "in case you hadn't noticed. And I will round up every last surviving man, woman, and child, and burn them to death after I allow my Tarkatans and Edenian allies to rape and torture them as they will. And then I will raze this city to the ground and leave no trace that it has _ever_ existed. So, _Lord of Toluca_ , I invite you to consider the wisdom of testing my patience."

Mazatl finally stopped struggling against his guards and gulped before his head sagged to the ground. "I know something," he finally admitted.

"Very good," Reiko said as he crossed his arms. "I knew you could be reasonable. Tell me, what do you know?"

"Some of my men saw them on the battlefield outside the city walls," he quietly told him. "Erron Black was with them, and he seemed to be protecting them. They escaped and fled into the Red Land." He sighed and looked up at the General. "That is all I know."

"I believe you," he replied, patting the Lord on his head like a dog. Then he looked to Skarlet. "Kill everyone. Burn this city to ash."

"Wait!" Mazatl screamed. "You said you'd spare my people if I told you what I knew!"

"I never once said that," Reiko smirked as he cocked his eyebrow at him in amusement.

"Bastard!" he shrieked as understanding filled his eyes. Skarlet smiled behind her mask and sauntered away, motioning the Tarkatans and Edenians to join her.

Reiko, meanwhile, turned his back on Mazatl, and started to walk out of the gate towards the desert beyond. As he did, he lifted his palm into the air and casually flexed his fingers. As he did, Mazatl's soul slid from his body, and soared into his own. Reiko's coiled around it like a great serpent, and then it devoured it, assimilating it and absorbing all the knowledge and experience therein. The Lord, meanwhile, choked for a second in fear and surprise, and then collapsed to the ground, ice blue from head to toe.

Just outside the city walls, the General looked towards the desert in determination, ignoring the sudden sounds of shrieking and fighting that erupted behind him. Erron Black knew its secrets well, but not as well as him. He would catch up with the children, and soon. Calmly, he raised both arms to the sky, his eyes sliding shut in concentration, as he focused on the Red Land, his mind racing over its unforgiving contours and obstacles, awakening them all to the children's presence, commanding them to hunt them down or hinder their progress.

Reiko's magic touched the Strega first, and like loyal dogs, they anxiously ran off in search of his prey. He did not envy the Earthrealm children when those particular vermin found them; at best, they would leave Takeda and Olivia insane, their brains scrambled and turned to mush. Nobody could withstand such an attack. Nobody. And after the Strega got through with them, the General would easily find them, vulnerable and helpless.

Pity it had to be that way, he mused. But they had made their choice to flee rather than wait for their parents to come with the information he desired. Clearly, they had no faith in Kenshi, contrary to what they'd said when he'd discussed it with them. But Kenshi – Reiko knew from discussions with his ally, Mavado – was not like Shao Kahn, who would have left _his_ son for dead if it meant parting with something precious. The swordsman cared deeply for Takeda, whether he realized it or not. He wouldn't have saved the boy from the Red Dragon, fled thousands of miles across Earthrealm, and left him with Scorpion and the Shirai Ryu if he didn't. So he would give up his precious secret. Of that, Reiko was certain.

"My Lord," a Tarkatan, Masika, Reiko thought, said. The General looked at him expectantly as he reverently knelt before him and bowed his head.

"What is it?" he asked, looking down on his soldier.

"Scouts report that the Earthrealm Champions are approaching Toluca on the Mother Road," he said. "They will be here before nightfall."

Reiko frowned and looked at the desert again. Without Takeda and Olivia as leverage, there was no reason for Kenshi to reveal his secret. He _had_ to find them first.

"Take fifty of your men," he ordered. "Delay them. Kill everyone you can, save for Kenshi. I want him alive."

"Yes, Lord," he replied as he got to his feet and scurried off to carry out his orders.

The Tarkatans would undoubtedly lose, of course. The Earthrealm Champions were not chosen by Raiden for nothing. Furthermore, the Wind God, Fujin, and the Dragonslayer were amongst their number, and neither of them were to be underestimated. But the Tarkatans' sacrifice would not be in vain; a skirmish would buy Reiko some much-needed time. And if they managed to eliminate even one of the humans? Well, that was even better.

* * *

It was already day, a windless and searing morning, when Erron and the children set out again. The sun beat down on them from the bleached sky, and the gunslinger was anxious to get through the Plains of Death as quickly as possible. They weren't named that for nothing, he vaguely thought. So after a quick breakfast of flame-roasted vulture, they were moving again, devoured by a merciless world of sand and ghost grass. They went slowly in a single file: Erron, Olivia, and Takeda.

Olivia seemed the most worn down of the three, and even though they crawled at a snail's pace, she often fell behind. Though she'd slept pretty good the night before – the gunslinger had observed – that damned collar that Reiko'd slapped on her kept her as weak as a newborn kitten. He supposed he understood that; if he had a Cryomancer by the tail, he'd have taken all necessary precautions too. Still, it didn't make his job any easier. Reiko would catch up to them in no time at this rate. Though Erron would never say it out loud, part of him was tempted to abandon her to the desert while he took Takeda and ran, but the Kahn wouldn't pay him for a job half done. He wanted _both_ kids delivered to him, alive and well. So he had to put up with her.

So they walked slowly, stooping, keeping close together in line. The ghost grass grew closer around them, making it increasingly difficult to find a safe path through where their feet could tread without getting sucked into lightning sand. The gunslinger knew his way, and thank God for that small miracle because none of them could've made it through otherwise.

The grass grew so thick in parts that it blocked out most of the sun; the air itself seemed black, and a heaviness like lead settled on them. The hairs on Erron's neck stood at attention, especially when he began to see shadows and movement out of the corner of his eyes. Soon, he caught sight of a pale figure that disappeared when he looked at it, but others appeared soon after, all like dimly shining smoke. Here and there was eerie mist that twisted like white sheets in the wind, carried by a low rumble that almost sounded like a dog growling.

"Mr. Black," Olivia nervously spoke, her voice trailing off uncertainly.

"Don't look at 'em," he curtly advised.

"Okay," the girl acknowledged, but when he heard nothing from Takeda, Erron promptly turned around.

Now it was the boy's turn to lag behind. Takeda had stopped dead in his path, hypnotized and lost in thought, looking at the figures whispering to him from the grass. His face was pale, and his arms hung stiff at his sides. Tears streamed down his face.

"Takeda!" he barked loudly, making Olivia jump. "Don't look at 'em. They're trying to kill you."

The boy shook his head slightly as if coming out of a trance. Then he realized he'd been crying and in humiliation, wiped the tears from his face. "Okay," he said, nodding his understanding. "I just saw…I thought I saw…" He trailed off, shaking his head once more. "Never mind," he muttered. "It wasn't real."

"Don't be so sure of that," the gunslinger mumbled under his breath as he whirled around and started walking through once again.

"Who are they?" Olivia asked, shuddering. "What are they?"

"Ghosts, as far as I can tell," he told her.

"Ghosts of whom?"

Erron shrugged. "Hell if I know," he said. "It's been like this since long before I showed up in Outworld. I think there was a battle here way back when Onaga was the head honcho. Maybe it was Shao Kahn." He looked back again to make sure Takeda was still following them, and blessedly, he was. "All I know is that they ain't happy, and they _will_ kill you if you give 'em half a chance. So the best thing to do is just pretend they ain't there. And stay close to me."

They walked in silence again, but Erron's uneasiness grew, and every now and then he stood on his tiptoes to peek over the grass if he could. He thought he heard, far away, a long chattering cry like a rattler shaking its tail, warning of impending danger. But it was gone as quickly as it had started, and the gunslinger prayed he only imagined it. His hands drifted to his .45s in expectation. But nothing happened and he relaxed, continuing on the path.

But a few minutes later, a rush of wind came on them, hissing through the grass like an omen, and the darkness deepened around them, at least to Erron's eyes. Shapeless drifts of fog curled and twisted around his legs as it rolled around them and passed through. And then he saw it: a transparent shadow on the path ahead that took the shape of someone he knew well. It took a lot anymore for things to get the best of Erron Black, but the sudden appearance of his old friend made his heart leap into his throat, choking him.

"You," he muttered, shocked.

And then there was shrieking behind him, and he recognized Olivia. He whirled around just in time to see her backing into him, sobbing and pleading for forgiveness from the man she'd killed barely two days prior. "I'm sorry," she muttered over and over again, even as Erron wrapped his arm around her and pulled her back. "I didn't mean it!" she wailed.

"It ain't gonna hurt you!" he yelled in her ear a moment before he abruptly realized Takeda was nowhere to be seen. "Shit!" he cursed as the ghost crept closer.

"Run!" the Cryomancer cried, pulling hard to get free.

"No!" the gunslinger argued as he held her fast. "That's what they want! Calm down, kid! It can't hurt you."

To prove his point, Erron instantly pulled the gun from his holster and shot it right through the forehead. Immediately, it disappeared into shadow, abandoning them in the dimness. He pulled Olivia around as he spun in the other direction to face _his_ past, and then put a bullet in that one's head as well. Like the first, he disappeared, and the Cryomancer heaved in strained breaths, but at last began to calm down.

"They want to scare us so we lose our wits and do somethin' stupid," he told her.

"Where's Takeda?" she panted, and he knew she was trying to use her head again.

His screams a short distance away answered her.

"Follow me," he urgently hissed, not liking the prospect of leaving the trail. "And step where I step, kid, or you may never be seen again."

"Yes, sir," she said as she gulped.

Erron cautiously stepped through the grass, holding her hand as he led her just to _ensure_ she stayed with him, ignoring the sensation of things touching him as he passed. The ground was even and sure – no lightning sand that he could see. He ran through it, pulling her along just as fast, following the sounds of Takeda's screams until they found him being pulled towards a large pit of lightning sand.

"Olivia!" he wailed as the unseen thing yanked him in. "Help me!"

He was chest deep in the sand almost immediately and sinking faster now; within seconds, it enveloped him to his neck. Olivia lurched forward in panic, quickly gripping his hands as the gunslinger threaded his arms beneath his armpits and wrapped them around his chest. Then, he used every inch of his strength to yank the kid free. He grunted as the motion strained his muscles; the force was just too great to withstand for long. Erron suspected he'd soon get pulled into the lightning sand with the teenager.

"Takeda!" Olivia sobbed as she fought to help Erron as best she could.

After what felt like an eternity had passed, the gunslinger finally felt the boy's body give, and between him and the girl, they pulled him out quickly. Takeda was crying like a little kid, and as soon as he was on stable ground again, he crawled on all fours to Olivia and threw himself in her arms.

"I saw my mother," he babbled like a lunatic as she hugged him back, crying onto his shoulder too. "I saw my mother."

"Just 'cause trouble come visitin' don't mean you gotta offer it a place to sit down," Erron snapped at him. "Jesus Christ, I told you to stay with me! This desert don't tolerate stupid mistakes."

"I just wanted to see her-"

"You gotta learn right and you gotta learn fast," he interrupted, furious. "And if either one of you don't wanna cooperate, I ain't got no trouble makin' you wish you was never born. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," Olivia said quietly. Takeda just sat there with tear-stained cheeks, saying nothing.

"Now, let's go," he barked, lifting them both to their feet. "Step where I step, and stay close."

"Yes, sir," they both said in unison.

He led them away, and when they finally emerged from the grassy maze, he was surprised by how much colder the air had gotten. The Plains of Death were at an end, dying away into golden sand and wide flats of dry, cracked mud. The land rose ahead in shallow slopes, barren and pitiless, towards the horizon and the oasis beyond.

In the falling dusk they scrambled from the ghost grass and slowly trekked their way over the rolling sand dunes and barren land. They stumbled onward, tired, silent, until night began to fall once more. Only then, did Erron allow them to stop and make camp once more.

* * *

 **Author's Note: For some reason, this website swallowed up the reviews various people left for me, so I don't remember exactly who reviewed and what they said. Therefore, I can't respond to them here like I normally do. But if you reviewed, thank you so much!**


	18. Ambush

**Author's Note: I want to thank DarkAssassin15 for inspiring the first part of this chapter. :)**

 **Also, to everyone that has recently added me to your favorite author and/or story, thank you as well. You guys rock!**

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On the hard-packed dirt of the Mother Road, the Earthrealm Champions spread out in the moonlight as they trekked westward, boots pounding on the ground in a steady rhythm. The Grandmaster led the way, the dark-clad Cryomancer all but invisible in the warm night. Kenshi and Grandmaster Hasashi flanked him on either side, matching his pace stride for stride, all of them seemingly tireless. Several paces behind them, Kailyn and Tomas trudged along, talking quietly with each other so that none could hear. Alex followed them as if he was tied to a rope with one end in his father's hands, and Anya walked silently beside Blue behind him.

Morgan was the last in line, using her spear as a walking stick, with Fujin just ahead and the others less distinct beyond. The Wind God never turned his head, reserving his eyes for where they marched, not what they marched from. If Tarkatans appeared behind, it would be up to the young Hydromancer to sound an alarm. So every few minutes, she craned her neck to peer behind her, searching for a threat. But the road was empty this time of day, and only darkness and shadows met her eyes on the ground. _Shadows that could hide an army_ , she morbidly thought.

On and on they walked, westward into the night, time fading into an indistinct blur. Now and again the lights of farmhouses flashed into sight, then disappeared as quickly as a thought. Dogs barked as they passed, and they faded or cut off abruptly once they decided the threat had been chased away. The Champions walked through darkness broken only by the pale moonlight, and it surrounded them in eerie stillness. Only a solitary bird's cry, lonely and mournful, disturbed the steady pounding of their boots on dirt.

Eventually, though, Fujin fell back and joined his only daughter's side, and they walked in silence for a while. But then, he broke that silence and said, "So why haven'tyou been with anyone yet, Morgan?"

"Dad!" she cried in exasperation. She looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and disgust.

"I'm just trying to be an involved father and help you," he said deferentially as he held up his hands.

Morgan uncomfortably shook her head. "Daddy, I let you help me learn how to ride a bicycle, and I let you help me do my homework and learn how to fight. But I do _not_ want you to help me 'get some.'" She threw up finger quotes.

He chuckled at that, and then said, "Fair enough. I'm just worried about you. Is there some… _reason_ why you haven't-" He abruptly cut himself off, even though he gestured with his hands still, and Morgan suspected it was because he didn't want to imagine his daughter banging someone.

She sighed, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. She didn't even want to have this conversation with her mother. "If you really want to know, Daddy," she began, "I just…I haven't met anyone interesting enough yet." That was true. Even guys that showed promise always seemed to let her down and turn her off.

"You're mostly surrounded by men all day, and you expect me to believe that?" he skeptically remarked, looking at her in staunch disbelief. "Surely _one_ of them catches your eye. Unless…"

She raised her eyebrow and looked at him suspiciously. "Unless what?" she demanded to know as her voice lilted higher.

"Unless you like women," he thoughtfully deduced. "Which is fine," he hastily added as he threw up his hands again. "I, too, have been known to dabble in-"

"Stop. Right. There," she cringed, and then rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Daddy, I don't want to know about _any_ of your conquests. It's bad enough that I know you slept with Mom."

"I don't know what you're so upset about," he said nonchalantly. "Intercourse is a perfectly natural behavior-"

"Dad!" she cried as she looked at him. She registered the ornery grin on his face and now knew he was doing that on purpose. She glowered at him. "If you ever use the word 'intercourse' around me again, I swear, I'm going to burst into flames."

"Alright, alright," he chuckled. "But in all seriousness, Morgan, what's wrong with the men in your Temple? It seems like my cousin has raised them to be honorable and good."

"I grew up with those boys and men," she reminded him. "They're like my brothers. Just the thought of dating them is gross, to say nothing of _sleeping_ with them."

"Then I think you need to get out more," he advised, looking forward. "You need to meet people outside of the Temple. Make friends outside of Arctika."

"Oh, I've met people and gone out on dates when I've gone with Olivia to her Grammy's," she told him, and then laughed when he looked at her in sudden alarm. She shrugged. "I'm not a total shut-in, Dad," she smirked. "But there was no spark with any of those guys. Not enough to make me want to sleep with them, anyway."

"I'm simultaneously reassured and horrified," he confessed. He was quiet for a minute, but then he looked at her again. "I may regret asking this, but…are you _sure_ there isn't anyone you'd consider being in a relationship with?"

She raised her eyebrow at him and scoffed. "What is this sudden interest in my love life?" she asked. He swallowed and looked away, stubbornly refusing to answer, so Morgan looked at him intently. "Dad, I want to know," she prodded.

He cleared his throat and looked at her. "This whole situation with Kuai Liang and _his_ daughter could've been avoided if they'd just talked to each other," he finally told her. "I want us to have a good relationship. I don't want there to be any secrets between us, Morgan."

"You know I couldn't keep a secret from you, even if I wanted to," she tried to reassure him.

"Yes, but I don't want you to want to," he said.

Morgan shook her head again, this time in amusement. "Dad," she smiled. And then she playfully stumbled into him, nudging him to the side.

"You called?" Tomas said as he, Kailyn, and Alex fell back and joined them.

Fujin scowled at their sudden intrusion, and especially Tomas'; he'd never forgiven him for wooing Morgan's mother, and the two, when together, usually went out of their way to annoy each other. The young Hydromancer understood the Wind God's disdain. She hadn't been fond of the Enenra when she first came to the Temple either. It had taken years to warm up to him. And while she now loved her _Tata_ dearly, there were times she secretly wished her mother and her father – her _real_ father – were still together.

"We're having a private conversation," Fujin said to him, and Morgan couldn't mistake the tone in his voice. _Go away_ , it said.

"If you didn't want me to know about it," Tomas began with an ornery grin, "you shouldn't have been discussing it in _my_ universe."

"Do you ever wonder what your life would've been like had you gotten enough oxygen at birth?" the other retorted.

Morgan shook her head impatiently, not wanting this to escalate into a full-blown argument between her fathers. "We're just discussing my love life," she told the newcomers as she wrapped her free arm around Fujin's.

Alex scoffed. "What love life?" he teased her as he elbowed her playfully. "Unless you count Sifu Bomani."

"Shut up, butt-face," she replied with a slight scowl as she pushed him away, her cheeks flushing with both anger and embarrassment.

"Cyrax?" her _Tata_ said in horror. "You have the hots for Cyrax? But he's boring! And…old!"

"For once, I agree with the idiot," the Wind God said as he frowned at his daughter.

Morgan rubbed her eyes as she felt her family's stares on her. "All I said was he was handsome and that I love his dreadlocks," she told them.

Tomas looked at Kailyn. "She _definitely_ gets her bad taste in men from you," he said with a straight face, making an obvious dig at Fujin, who instantly understood.

"Hey, genius, she picked you too," he shot back before the Tetrach could retort.

Tomas started to protest, and then he realized the truth of his statement, and cleared his throat. Then he looked at Alex. " _Můj syn_ , you should not be teasing your sister," he admonished. "Not after everything that has come out about _you_ in the last few days."

The brief glimmer of mirth in her brother's eyes faded as quickly as it had come, and he looked to his feet. "Sorry, _Tata_ ," he apologized. "I'm sorry, Morgan."

The Hydromancer felt terrible for her stepbrother. He had fought so adamantly against Olivia, insisting that she was wrong about the Grandmaster, insisting that he'd understand and be happy for them. The past few days had been a huge slap in his face, and it had weighed more and more heavily on him as the hours slipped by. But what the Grandmaster said about wishing he had died with his twin sister had been the absolute worst expression of his anger. Morgan knew – because the Cryomancer had raised him longer than his own father had – that Alex loved him like a father too, so his cruel words had cut him to the core. It would've been better if he'd beat the Elite half to death. But, like nearly every male in the Temple, her stepbrother had learned to pretend it didn't bother him in the slightest except, of course, in moments like this when someone threw it back in his face.

Alex looked so despondent and sad that the Hydromancer wanted to cheer him up, and she knew just what to do. She said, "Hey, Alex, tell everyone how you and Olivia got together."

He flashed an alarmed look at her. "I don't think that's a good idea," he protested, glancing nervously at the Grandmaster, who walked several paces ahead.

Morgan looked from Fujin to Tomas to Kailyn. "He was teaching her how to fire a gun properly," she began. "At the Temple's firing range."

"That's not when it happened," Alex corrected her in annoyance.

"It is from _her_ point of view," she argued.

"Would you just drop it?" he snapped, now frowning. He anxiously glanced at the Grandmaster again.

"I think we would _all_ like to hear this story, Alexander," Kailyn told him, gazing at him with her piercing, stern eyes that could easily coax out the most stubborn confession.

Morgan smiled smugly at him and then looked at her mother and fathers. "Olivia said that when he was teaching her how to shoot, she was having a little bit of trouble, so he wrapped his arms around her to help steady her aim," she explained. "She said she hadn't thought about him as anything more than a friend before that, but something about the way he helped her hold that gun sparked something in her."

Alex rolled his eyes. "Ugh, you sound like a Harlequin romance novel," he groaned.

"And how would _you_ know what a Harlequin romance novel sounds like?" she countered.

Tomas chuckled. "She's got you there, _můj syn_."

In frustration, the Elite sighed. "Look, it was Olivia's birthday and we were all staying the night at her Grammy Maggie's house because she wanted to spend it with her friends, remember?" he said. "Maggie gave Olivia her first taste of alcohol. I think it was Irish coffee or something like that. I don't remember. But she got drunk and told me she was in love with me. And then she puked in the herb box on Maggie's windowsill, and passed out. We talked about it the next day, and we've been together ever since."

Silence followed for a minute after that as the adults contemplated the story. Then Tomas nodded and said, "Yup. Do _not_ tell Kuai Liang that story."

"Definitely not," Fujin added a second later.

"I hadn't planned on-"

Whatever he'd intended to say, Alex's statement effectively became _we can worry about it later_. Because it was at that moment that the Earthrealm Champions learned that they were not alone on this road.

Their first warning of danger came as a low undulation in the earth, and it seemed as if the ground on either side of the Mother Road was rippling like river rapids. The Champions instantly fell into defensive stances, bracing themselves for something terrible. And then there was the sound: a terrible, shrieking din of a choir of monsters. Then the ground _was_ shaking and shuddering as at least fifty Tarkatans threw camouflaging blankets that made them blend in with the desert floor off their bodies. They sprang to their feet and charged towards them, screaming their war cries.

Alex, one of the Temple's only munitions experts, immediately had his .45 caliber pistols in his hands and was shooting at the enemy as his father sprang into action and started firing missiles from his cybernetic palm. The acrid tang of gunpowder and smoke wafted into the air, carried upon the noise. The Elite – code-named Caliber – was quick and accurate, even as an unusually large Tarkatan barreled towards him with his arm blades extended and his fanged maw snarling. He whirled around and fired. Instantly, the hollow-point plunged through the middle of his forehead and exploded out the back. A fine red cloud of blood and brain matter burst into the air before the unlucky Tarkatan fell to the ground in a heap, dead.

Almost immediately after the fight started, Fujin found Sub-Zero and shouted, "Cousin! Eridu!"

The Grandmaster instantly understood. Back in Eridu many years prior, hundreds – perhaps thousands – of Onaga's skeleton army had attacked the Earthrealm Champions, and they'd only defeated them when the Wind God and the Cryomancer worked together to freeze them all. Now, as he did then, Fujin formed a tornado with his gracefully moving hands, and then, with an abrupt shove, tipped the vortex on its side towards the roaring Tarkatans charging towards them. Wasting no time, Sub-Zero threw out his own hands as if shoving an immovable force, and with the gesture flew his blue-white power. As expected, the wind stretched and twisted the cryogenic energy, weaving it into the gusts and debris, blasting the enemy around them. In one fell swoop, at least ten of the attackers froze into statues, caught with gruesome snarls on their faces, their arm blades extended permanently.

Elsewhere on the road, Scorpion side-kicked a Tarkatan's knee and utterly destroyed it, but he didn't spend a second contemplating his pleasure over the monster's howls of pain because he'd already hefted another one over his head and then slammed him into the first. While both were dazed and confused, the Grandmaster of the Shirai Ryu immediately yanked his katanas from the scabbard on his back and plunged them through the top one's fanged mouth. The blades slid through the soft tissue at the back of his neck, cut through the spine and the external flesh with a squelching crunch, and then found the second monster's eye. In seconds, both were dead.

Nearby, Kenshi easily hefted a Tarkatan into the air with his powers and then tossed the creature towards the river. Vaguely, he heard the distant splash of water as the beast wailed in panic; if memory served, the swordsman knew that most Tarkatans couldn't swim. But he had no time or inclination to think on it because the next one was right behind him. He gracefully swung Sento at him, but more skilled than his brethren, the beast expertly countered the motions with his arm blades. In turn, he swung them at Kenshi's head in broad strokes, but found that the Earthrealm Champion easily parried the most precise strikes. Impatiently, the swordsman lashed out with his powers so ferociously that they shoved or pulled – Kenshi couldn't quite be sure – the Tarkatan's ribcage right out of his back.

Though Anya hadn't been born to the Warrior Class like her sister, and her fighting powers were much weaker compared to the elder Hydromancer, she had learned long ago how to defend herself, trained by her family and friends. So when a Tarkatan leapt into a barrel kick with his arm blades whirring around him, she automatically flipped into a backwards handspring and his kick and his weapons sailed harmlessly over her. But before he had even recovered, she was fearlessly running up his chest like a monkey. When her feet reached his shoulders, she wrapped her legs tightly around his neck and flung herself backwards. The momentum pulled him forward, and he rolled through the air like a baseball, careening into two of his nearby comrades, knocking them down. As soon as they toppled to the dirt, Blue was there, mauling them with a vicious growl. Their screams were loud and strong at first, but soon died away into a pathetic gurgle.

Meanwhile, two Tarkatans swarmed towards Kailyn, but she immediately flung out her palm and released a rope of water that she manipulated into a lasso. The writhing tentacle yanked the beasts to her, and as drool foamed over their teeth, they attacked her with their arm blades. Calmly, though, she deflected them with her spear, and they traded blows for several long seconds before one of the Tarkatans left his groin unguarded. She promptly booted him in the crotch, and as he toppled to the ground, she splashed the other in the face with a jet of water. He stumbled backwards, and in that fleeting moment of distraction, she ran her spear through his belly.

At the edge of the melee, near Alex and Tomas, Morgan also battled with Tarkatans with her spear. But she, a powerful Hydromancer Warrior and Falcata like her mother, impatiently lifted her hand into the air. Willed immediately into existence, a twisting water spout sprang from the ground and like an angry ribbon it rippled at the monsters and tossed them through the air. One Tarkatan, however, danced around her creation, and attacked. His fist, heavy and strong, chopped towards her head. She caught the deadly arm blade with the haft of her spear before it hacked through her shoulder, but she was not strong enough to stop his attack entirely. His fist struck her temple and the arm blade cut her ear. Morgan yelped, but then angrily kneed the Tarkatan in the groin. He stumbled back a step, and she shrieked as she swept him off his feet with the shaft of her spear; mercilessly, she stabbed the spearhead through his throat, and then twisted it just to be sure he was dead.

But a frightening roar barreled towards her, and when she looked up, she saw a Tarkatan running at her like a madman. Instantly, she yanked the spear from the dead monster's throat, lifted it up and turned the haft over in her hand. With a strained grunt, she hefted it at the creature, and her spear flew true through the air, plunging into his eye. The force of the blow knocked him onto his back, and he lay in the dirt, quivering.

"Well done, Morgan!" Kailyn called to her. The young Hydromancer had no time to answer. She was already running towards her spear to retrieve it.

Unbeknownst to her, however, another Tarkatan rushed towards her backside with arm blades poised to stab her. But Kailyn saw it, and with a fearsome snarl of her own, she lassoed him with another water whip, yanking him to her to stab him in the heart with her spear. Blood dribbled over her hands as Morgan looked at her in shock and surprise, suddenly realizing just how close she came to certain death.

"Thanks, Mom," she breathed when the beast fell to the ground in a bloody heap.

"Be more conscientious of your backside," the Tetrach admonished.

"Yes, Ma'am," the Falcata told her, knowing she'd disappointed her mother. But she had no time to dwell on it because more Tarkatans were on them, attacking.

Close by, Alex patiently waited as two of the beasts ran towards him, snarling. The shorter one arrived first, and he easily blocked the attack and caught the monster's arm. Then, he gracefully danced around, even as the Tarkatan fought to get away, and shoved his still-extended blade into the taller one's throat. As the unfortunate victim gurgled and choked through a mouthful of blood before collapsing, Alex yanked a grenade from his utility belt, popped out the pin with his thumb, and then shoved it down the other's throat. He pushed the Tarkatan away as he dove to the side just as he heard a loud thud and felt chunks of flesh and sprays of blood thump him in the back.

"That was _disgusting_ , _můj syn_!" Smoke cried as the Elite popped his head up and looked at his father. A grin slowly spread across the cyber-ninja's face. "I approve!" Then an ornery sparkle gleamed in his eyes. "But, can you do this?"

And with that, he willed himself into a cloud of black smoke that roiled through no less than five Tarkatans. When he reformed himself on the other side of them, their faces were already shaded scarlet, and beads of sweat dripped from their heads in buckets. Their eyeballs strained from their sockets, and they tilted their heads to the sky, groaning in anguish as steam escaped from their mouths. In seconds, their heads burst like grapes with loud, disgusting pops, splattering their still-living comrades with blood and cooked meat. Instantly, they turned and ran from the battlefield, fearing the same fate. But Alex, not wanting to get ambushed by the same ones later, calmly raised his pistols and picked them off quickly.

Then he turned to his father. Of _course_ I can't do that!" he yelped. "I'm not an Enenra like you."

"All I'm hearing are excuses," he teased his son.

"Very funny, _Tata_ ," he retorted.

Gradually, the enemy number was thinning. On the opposite side of the battlefield, Scorpion and Kenshi fought closely beside each other to decimate that number even more. Fearsomely, the Grandmaster flung his kunai spear at one of the Tarkatans. "Come here!" he yelled as it flew through the air and found his shoulder. But as the Shirai Ryu reeled his catch in, the swordsman promptly decapitated him with Sento. Scorpion gave his old friend an annoyed glare, even though he probably couldn't see it, before he yanked out his katanas once more and battled the enemy.

Kenshi, meanwhile, was expertly cutting down his share of enemies with a combination of his telekinetic powers and his superior swordplay, and his kills were getting increasingly exotic and gruesome as time wore on and his energy wore down. One of the Tarkatans attacked him, but before his arm blades could fall, the swordsman had lifted the creature into the air and held him there like a cloud before he willed Sento to follow. Then, with a simple thought, his ancestor's sword began to twirl through the air in a circle, moving faster and faster until the blade was nothing but a blur like a fan inside a jet engine. The Tarkatan watched this development in horror, writhing and grunting in fear, struggling to swim away or fall, but Kenshi held him firmly in place before finally allowing him to float towards his doom. In seconds, pieces of the monster rained upon everyone, and when Sento returned to him, it was dripping with blood and gore as if it had been dipped in a vat of the stuff. But he did not wipe it off. There was no point. Not yet.

Scorpion looked at him with both respect and uncertainty before he launched himself into the air in a butterfly twist to avoid the arm blades stabbing for him. When he came down, his swords both arched towards a Tarkatan's outstretched arm blade and cut it cleanly through the elbow, severing it entirely. But he didn't stop there. He let the weight of his katanas carry him around in a full circle until they found the enemy's neck. The Tarkatan stood there stupidly with his blood-red eyes bulging in surprise from his sockets. Then his head slid off the stump to the side, dropping to the dirt with a loud thump.

And then something hot and burning stabbed through Scorpion's shoulder, prompting him to cry out in pain as he lost his grip over his katanas. They clattered to the ground, but he scarcely noticed he'd let them go. He looked down; an arm blade protruded from him through the shoulder, and the Tarkatan who'd been lucky enough to wound him was moving to stab him with his other blade.

Time slowed to a standstill. Fire surged through the blood in his veins, but it was not from pain or the adrenaline from battle. It was the demon buried deep inside his soul, roaring to life once more. It scorched Scorpion from the inside out, and before he even knew what he was doing, his taut fingers curled towards the sky, yanking fire from the Netherrealm itself. It exploded from the ground in a shimmering red wave of heat and destruction, and instantly, it engulfed ten Tarkatans, not least of which was the one who'd wounded him to begin with. In seconds, they were all charred beyond recognition, and when they fell to the ground, they exploded into piles of ash.

Scorpion howled, feeling more free than he'd felt in years, but his voice was not _his_. It was demonic and distorted like it once was before he'd escaped Quan Chi's prison. Power coursed through him, reinvigorating his youth, strengthening him with immortal energy. It. Was. _Glorious_. But when he looked around with a wicked snarl, his comrades' astonished and fearful expressions jarred him back to his senses, and the demon immediately scurried back into the hole in his heart, chased there by his conscience.

Anya had no time to reflect on Scorpion's dilemma before a new Tarkatan attacked her. It predictably swung its arm blades at her, but she blocked his shots while delivering many of her own. Still, he was stronger and bigger than her, and she knew it wouldn't be long before he'd worn her down enough to defeat her. Already, her arms were tired from fighting, and heavy like lead. As if reading her mind, Blue, silently snarling, crept up behind him and snapped at his ankle. She yanked hard on it as he wailed, dropping him to his knees a moment before the Hydromancer kneed him beneath the chin, knocking him to his back. Then the Seidan wolf was on him, pawing and biting at his throat, viciously ripping it out even long after the Tarkatan had died.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Alex and Morgan now fought beside each other, and with a mischievous grin, the young Hydromancer said, "Let's have a contest." And then, she ran a Tarkatan through with her spear.

"Oh?" the Elite asked as he blew off a Tarkatan's head point blank with one of his guns. He calmly threw a live grenade at the rear lines a moment later.

"I want to see who can kill more Tarkatans," she said, stabbing yet another.

Alex snorted in laughter. "That's hardly a fair fight," he scoffed. "My guns are far more efficient than a spear." As if proving his point, he shot two more.

"Then what's the problem?" she raised an eyebrow. "Unless you're afraid _I'm_ the better warrior."

"Fine," he shrugged. He squeezed off two bullets at an approaching Tarkatan's forehead. "Double tap," he gloated as the monster fell to the ground. "That's one for me."

In response, Morgan gracefully twirled around with her spear in one hand, and stabbed one while she formed a water bubble with the other and drowned one. "Two for me."

Alex narrowed his eyes and shot two more. "Three."

Morgan danced around and killed two more as well. "Four."

"Six.

"Six."

"Seven."

"Eight."

This continued for several minutes until at last, Morgan accidentally found herself surrounded on all sides by Tarkatans who were snarling and growling, gradually creeping towards her. She didn't stand a chance against all of them, she knew, even after Alex noticed her predicament and shot a few. But the surviving Tarkatans filled in the gap while he reloaded, so the Hydromancer twirled her spear and then glared at them as she waited to see who'd attack her first.

And then, a sudden gust of air raced down from the sky, though that wasn't _quite_ an accurate description of it. It was more as if an invisible hand had slapped the ground to squash some ants for no reason other than that it could. A blinding cloud of dirt and debris mushroomed around Morgan like a donut, blasting her Tarkatan aggressors in all directions after the sheer impact of the wind flayed off their skin in huge sections. Her heart pounded in her chest as she held steady, and when the dust settled, Fujin was standing there looking decidedly unamused.

"I counted _ten_ ," he told her with a frown as he crossed his arms. "I believe I win."

Morgan swallowed hard as she stepped towards him. "I had it under control," she lied.

The Wind God raised his eyebrow at her. "Yes, it seemed that way to me," he drily remarked. Then he looked from her to Alex. "Outworld is _not_ the place for stupid games," he admonished them. "Do not let your sibling rivalry distract you from very real threats."

"Yes, Dad," she said as Alex said, "Yes, Sir."

Fujin seemed satisfied with that, but then curled his finger beneath Morgan's chin to force her to look at him. "I only have one child," he told her. "And she's irreplaceable. So please, Morgan, I don't ever want to see you behaving so recklessly again."

She nodded again, this time pain choking out her throat, and tears beaded on her eyes. "It won't happen again," she told him, wiping her eyes in shame. "I promise."

He faintly smiled at that before he left her, rushing off to aid Sub-Zero once more, leaving her and Alex to continue cutting their way through the Tarkatans.

While that was happening, Kailyn had danced around with her spear, running Tarkatans through when she wasn't drowning them with water or breaking their necks with water whips. With a ferocious cry, she heaved her bloody spear into one of the monster's throats, directly in the carotid artery. Instantly, blood exploded outward, spraying her with a thick shower of warm, coppery fluid. It stained her blond hair red and painted her face with sticky gore. Blood dripped from head to toe, and she blinked in annoyance as it drenched her clothes.

Smoke, who saw the whole thing, burst into predictable laughter, and then, as she glared at him, _not_ amused, he began to sing: _The lady in reddddddd / is dancing with me / cheek to cheek_.

While Kailyn had long since heard that song and thought it beautiful and full of love, she did _not_ appreciate the joke at the moment. "I do not think this is funny, Tomas," she growled at him as she tried to wipe the blood from her cheeks and eyes while he continued singing to her.

But when she'd cleared her eyes, she saw a Tarkatan sneaking up behind him. As fast as thought, her hunting knife was in her hand and then in the air, tumbling rapidly towards the vile creature. Just before the creature stabbed her mate, her knife plunged through his eye and dropped him to the ground with a startled scream. Quickly, Smoke turned around and looked at the Tarkatan, who was not quite dead, while the Tetrach marched up and knelt beside it. She yanked the knife from its eyeball and then calmly slit its throat to finish the job. And when she stood again, Tomas gazed at her with eyes full of love and lust.

"I am _so_ turned on right now," he said to her with an ornery smirk.

Kailyn faintly smiled back. "Later, my love," she told him as she stroked his hair behind his ear. In response, he growled like a tomcat in heat.

By this point, the Earthrealm Champions had successfully slain or frightened off most of the Tarkatans that had ambushed them, and those few that remained were easy pickings for the likes of Scorpion and Kenshi. As Anya and Blue finished up with one of their own, however, the Hydromancer Healer saw another one sneaking up on her husband, who was using his kori sword to fight with a different monster altogether.

Something welled up inside her then, and for all the anger she felt for him right now, she realized she didn't want to lose him. He was the father of her children, her life partner, her best friend, her _soulmate_. How _dare_ that monster threaten him, and in such a cowardly fashion at that? With an impulsive cry, she darted across the Mother Road towards the eerily silent Tarkatan and leapt on his shoulders, absorbing his memories and feelings into hers as her hands wrapped around his neck.

 _She stood before a tall man, handsome, with diamonds tattooed around his eyes. Reiko. He stood there with an arrogant smirk as a Tarkatan horde and thousands of well-trained Edenian soldiers pillaged and burned Toluca behind him. Flames roared into the sky, licking the faded blue color with its forked tongue. Screams touched her ears – the screams of young and old, of women and children, of entire families. But all she saw – all she_ felt – _was fire; it burned in her soul while hatred churned through her thoughts. This man, Shao Kahn's son, was guilty of so much more than kidnapping her daughter. And she would have his blood. She would have the corpses of Tarkatans, and the first of so many Edenians to come. And she would have them now!_

Before Anya even realized she'd left his mind, her healing powers plunged into the Tarkatan, but they felt strange. Inverted. Upside down. And rather than infusing him with power while knitting his wounds, they did the exact opposite; they sucked his life away while she screamed and pulled the energy into her. She didn't even look to see what it was doing to him, for if she had, she would have seen him rapidly shrivel into a mummy. Even when she instinctively felt nothing else flow into her, and she pushed the dead Tarkatan to the ground, she didn't look at him. Instead, she collapsed to her knees and looked up at Kuai Liang with tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Toluca is gone," she sobbed. "Reiko killed them all."

* * *

 **ROCuevas, thank you as always! XD**

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, I assure you, I wasn't even thinking of _The Hobbit_ or _The Patriot_ when I wrote my last two chapters. Like I told you, I've heard that one saying before in places besides _The Hobbit_. As for that church scene in _The Patriot_ , I suppose I can understand why you'd think that, but like I said, that movie was nowhere on my radar when I wrote it. I just wanted Reiko to do something terrifying. Up until now, he's seemed like the kinder, gentler villain. But I wanted to remind everyone why he should be feared. **

**Westcoast Witchdoctor, oh definitely. Sub-Zero will definitely be a little bit stubborn about Olivia and Alex until the end. But, he's surrounded by good friends who know how to get through to him. ;) I don't know if Bi-han or Miyuki will come to his aid. You'll have to see ;) I don't think I've ever heard of _Shadow Man_ , but I'll take your word for it. I can definitely see what you mean, though, and it makes sense. I was thinking of something like Dante's _Inferno_ when I came up with that. **

**Lightrunner, thanks! I'm glad you enjoy the way I do things. Unfortunately, no, the revenants won't be in this story. Though, if you like Kitana, she _was_ in my trilogy. :D**

 **en-lumine, thanks! I'm glad you liked the Kenshi part. I was stressing about getting it right for you and iceangelmkx. But indeed, the troubles are just beginning for everyone! Reiko won't go down without a fight, as I'm sure you've probably guessed.**

 **iceangelmkx, you're right about that; Kenshi's dilemma is only temporarily over. ;) With that collar, I'm trying to give a nod to what Sub-Zero went through with Kabal, while at the same time considering how metal would act in the hot sun. Everything that comes to mind is decidedly unpleasant. That mirage Takeda saw, though? That was the _least_ of the desert's tricks. Muah ha ha! **

**Esha Napoleon, thank you!**


	19. The Oasis

**Author's Note: I want to give a shout-out and thank you to en-lumine and Hell-on-Training-Wheels for helping me brainstorm elements of this chapter. A special thanks also goes out to DarkAssassin15, who asked that I start exploring one particular demon from Erron's past in order to help those who've experienced that same struggle. While this chapter does not really delve deeply into the issue, it does start to introduce it and will continue to play a part in his side of the story. Anyway, muchas gracias, mis amigas! XD**

 **P.S. To Obelisk of Light, hugs!**

* * *

Olivia's heart pounded as she ran alone through Arctika, and she stared, searching, at the barren, snowy hills surrounding her. Nothing grew in the permafrost that crunched beneath her heavy boots, not so much as a bit of grass. She scrambled past boulders, twice as tall as she was; crusty snow coated the stone as if it had never been exposed to daylight. The sun, at the moment, was a swollen yellow ball fierier than the hottest day of summer and it cast a glare off the white landscape that was bright enough to sear her eyes. But even still, it stood stark against a leaden cauldron of a sky where clouds of sharp black and silver roiled on every horizon. For all the swirling clouds, though, no wind swept across the land, not even the slightest breeze, and despite the blaring sun the air burned cold, plunged into the frigid depths of polar summer.

"Livy!" she heard a voice, distant and faint, cry. "Livy!"

The young Cryomancer stopped in her tracks and cocked her head. "Dad?" she muttered to herself. Desperately, Olivia climbed to the top of a knife-edged hill, then flung herself down the opposite side when she saw him on the snowy plain below, wandering alone in search of her. "Dad!" she shrieked. "Dad!"

He looked up, and a smile spread across his stern face. "Livy?"

She smiled back at him and laughed as she bolted down the hill, sometimes sliding on her boots on the slick snow, sometimes trudging through thick drifts. Her heart had long since leapt with joy into her throat, choking it out, and her mind was set only on throwing herself into her arms and hugging him as tightly as she could. He opened his arms to receive her, and she nearly tackled him with a bear hug as she dove against him, giggling.

"Where have you been?" he demanded to know as he kissed her forehead.

"Scouting out a good spot," she said.

"And?" he questioned, letting her go.

She looked back up the hill. "I think this is the best spot yet," she answered.

He examined it and nodded in agreement. "Well, then, let's get to it," he said.

"Aye, aye, Captain," she saluted with a grin.

Then she turned around and began the long, hard hike up the steep hillside. Olivia was in great shape, but even for her, such an endeavor was difficult, and she huffed and panted as she climbed. She didn't notice that her father had cheated; rather than hiking up beside her, he fell backwards into the ice, sliding through glowing white dimensions that eventually deposited him on the summit high above. But soon, she realized that the only sound she heard was the noise of her gasping for air and her boots crushing snow beneath her feet.

"Dad?" she called out as she looked behind, searching for him. She saw nothing. "Dad?" she yelled, confused and slightly panicked.

"Up here!" he shouted, drawing her attention.

When she saw him standing high above her, she scowled. "Dad," she grumbled, her voice lilting low. "That's not fair!"

"Then learn to teleport!" he dared her with a smile. He crossed his arms.

She frowned. She'd tried to learn. On many occasions. And she'd failed. She couldn't quite make herself believe that the ground would magically slide apart for her like it did for him. And every time she forced herself to take that trust fall, she wound up hitting the floor like a log and getting a huge bump on her head that her mother inevitably had to heal. And then Anya would scowl at the Grandmaster as he laughed at his daughter, and she would tell him to teach Olivia better.

"You could have at least taken me with you," the young Cryomancer wheezed when she finally made it to the top.

"Learn to do it yourself," he repeated as he patted her shoulder.

"Have you maybe considered that I just can't?" she panted. "That the only reason _you_ can is because you have the Dragon Medallion?"

"Nonsense," the Grandmaster replied. "You just have to practice more."

"I don't want to," she said. "I hate that face Mom makes every time I go into the infirmary after I do."

"Hey, I get that face too, kiddo," he said with a smile. "Only I get it worse. _Much_ worse."

Olivia laughed. "Well, you probably deserve it." She looked up at him. "Can we just do this?"

He chuckled. "What, do you have a hot date or something?" he teased.

She blushed. "No!" she cried in exasperation. "I've just been looking forward to this all day."

"Alright, alright," he grumbled. "Think you can manage this?" he teased as he looked down. "This is a pretty big hill. You're not scared, are you?"

Olivia narrowed her eyes. "No," she replied. "Are you?"

The Grandmaster scoffed. "Hardly. I once did this with your Uncle Tomas down the Himalayas. _This_ is nothing."

"Are we gonna do this, or are you gonna talk about the good ol' days and bore me to tears?"

He raised his eyebrow, but said nothing as he stretched out his arms in front of him and flexed his hands hard. Instantly, the cold air around his fingers grew colder, forming dense fog that rapidly glowed blue, the same shade that now rippled up his wrists and stained his skin all the way to his elbows. Twin jets of cryogenic energy now exploded from his palms and pounded the snow, instantly freezing it into a glassy, oval sheet of ice. When it was sufficiently thick and long enough, his powers receded and he looked at Olivia expectantly.

"Ladies first," he said as he gestured towards it.

She smiled as she stepped to the ice and sat down at the back, bunching her knees up to her chest. Then the Grandmaster knelt on the sled in front of her, quickly forming two ice handles at his sides for better control. He cast a glance over his shoulder at her.

"Last chance to get off," he taunted.

Olivia glowered at him through a veiled grin and then pushed off with her hands. Instantly, the sled was racing down the hill, slow at first but quickly gaining speed. Soon, the g-forces tugged at them from all directions, and the young Cryomancer felt them yank her heart into her belly as blurs of white whipped past on either side. She screamed in delight while her father laughed and steered through the icy cloud of snow they kicked up on their descent. Within seconds, they were at the bottom and their sled crashed into a drift, bucking them into the snow on either side.

Olivia sputtered for a minute through giggles before she batted the heavy clumps of snow from her bangs. Her father, also laughing, also wiping snow from his face, slowly rolled onto his knees and then stood up straight, brushing even more snow from his solid black winter coat. He then extended his hand towards his daughter, and lifted her to her feet when she took it. Instantly, she flung herself into his arms.

"That was awesome," she said, still giggling as she wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up at his face.

He nodded with a huge grin. "Want to go again?"

"Will you give me a ride to the top this time?" she asked hopefully.

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, I _suppose_ ," he drawled in fake annoyance. Then he brushed a piece of snow from her hair.

Olivia said nothing to that. She merely let him hold her for a long hug, flooding her with a sense of security and love. But then, just as she was about to release him so they could go sledding again, he suddenly tensed and gasped for air.

"Dad?" she asked as a horrible sinking feeling immediately plunged through her stomach. He stumbled back a step, now clawing at his chest. "Dad?" she cried. He was already turning cyanotic blue.

"Livy, run," he croaked before his aura of reds and violets were violently yanked from his body through his back. Instantly, he tumbled at her feet.

"Dad!" she shrieked, flinging herself beside him, hopelessly trying to shake him awake. But there was no breath and no movement. Dread – a primal fear and worse, _understanding_ – swallowed her soul. He was dead. She didn't want to admit it, and she continued to shake him in desperation, but deep down, she knew. He was dead. Olivia looked up, and through burning tears, she saw Reiko standing above him, holding the Grandmaster's soul like a ball in his hand.

"Long live the King," he growled with a wicked sneer.

* * *

"Dad!" Olivia screamed as she flung her thin blanket off her and flailed about in the hot sand like a fish out of water, shivering and gasping for breath. When Erron tried to tackle her to stop her from hurting herself, she only saw Reiko, and took an angry swing at him.

"Whoa, kid, calm down," he barked as he blocked her punch. "You're safe. For now, anyway."

"Mr. Black?" she breathlessly asked as her snow-covered dream faded from her sight and the gunslinger's masked face loomed large above her. Gradually, her breathing slowed. "Where am I?" she asked as she looked around. Half-burnt logs blazed in the campfire with a good bed of coals built up around the rocks; someone – undoubtedly the gunslinger – had tended it while she slept. Olivia's blanket lay at her feet where it had fallen when she kicked it off when she woke.

"Hell," Takeda snidely remarked from his bed nearby.

Erron scoffed. "Naw," he chuffed. "Hell's a bit further south. Same zip code, though." He offered his hand to Olivia, who took it, and he lifted her to her feet. "Bad dream?" he asked a moment later, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

She nodded somberly, averting her eyes to the ground. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Suit yourself," he said. "We need to move out."

Once they had gathered their belongings and extinguished the fire in the pit, Olivia followed after Erron without a moment's hesitation, and Takeda kept hard to the Cryomancer's side. It wasn't long before the cobalt collar on her neck began to burn and sting, and as she walked, she tried to yank it from her neck again to no avail.

Dawn, the desert was dusky under a rose-colored sky, and silent, and dappled shadows stretched long across the dunes. The soft thuds of their boots faded quickly, swallowed by the sand. In the dimness, the gunslinger's cloak made him a shadow too. Only the need to let him lead the way kept the teenagers from clustering around him.

"It was just…an illusion? Are you _certain_?" Takeda asked for the umpteenth time since their adventure in the Dead Plains the night before.

"Just as certain as I was the last time you asked, kid," Erron told him. "And the time before that. I don't reckon my answer will change anytime soon, neither. Your ma ain't here. It's just your eyes playin' tricks on you."

The trio of speakers – the nerve-wracked teenagers and the gunslinger, with his revolvers on his hips and his cloak fluttering behind him – walked ever deeper into the desert on a plateau not terribly far below the peaks of the distant mountains. Everything was dyed in discordant blots of color, cast by the ambient light of the sun streaming through clouds and refracting off half-melted blobs of glass. It was oddly disorienting, Olivia thought as she trudged behind Takeda and Erron. It created images where there were none. And Takeda, his brains addled by heat and stress, continually saw his dead mother.

The Cryomancer, on the other hand, kept seeing the man she killed in battle, angrily coming for her.

After the latest time, though, she squeezed her eyes shut and remembered Erron's words: it wasn't real. And then she thought of her father, and imagined him frightening the ghost away with a simple flourish of a massive kori sword. When she dared to open her eyes again, the dead man was gone, banished once more to the grave and her memories. For now, anyway.

But then Olivia's thoughts turned to her dream of her father, and she winced at the memory. Her father had always seemed indestructible. Nothing could harm him; nothing could stop him, or even slow him down. For Reiko to have stolen his life so easily…The mere notion robbed her of what little courage she had managed to keep. But she had to keep on. That was all that kept her moving. She had to because that's what her dad would do.

For a moment, Olivia hesitated, prompting Takeda to give her a wayward look. But then she shook her head and started moving again, wondering what her dream had meant. It made her feel odd. It was only a dream, but when she thought of the initial joy of it followed by the grotesque horror, it seemed to drag at her heart like a great weight.

Angrily, she berated herself. This was no time or place for such idiocy. It had only been a dream. How many times had she dreamed about her dad in her life, about having little adventures with him that were sometimes memories and sometimes hopes for the future? If she could forget about those, then why did this one bother her so much? Only, she argued with herself, she knew the difference. In those prior dreams, nothing bad had happened to him. They had never included a psychotic warlord stealing her father's soul as ruthlessly as the old Emperor, and they had never included the tears streaming down her face or the very real agony setting her heart on fire.

 _It was just a dream. So why do I feel so bad?_ Olivia wondered. Even now, as she walked through the scorched land, she couldn't understand it. Even her very worst night terrors from her childhood never stuck with her as long as this one had.

She thought about the way she and her father had sledded down that huge hill. They used to do things like that together all the time. Just him and her. Oh, sure, they had expeditions with the whole family on occasion, and sometimes even the entire Temple. But at least once a week, even if her chores weren't done or she had homework to do, she and her father would sneak away from the Temple for a few hours to go play in the snow instead. Her mother frequently admonished him for that, especially when Olivia came back to the Temple too tired to even eat dinner, but she had long since given up arguing about it with him and started pretending not to know.

Olivia tugged on the cobalt collar around her neck yet again, hearing a faint slurp as it tugged and pinched her skin, and cringed when it occurred to her that she hadn't gone with her dad to play in the snow for a long time. It seemed that she'd lost interest in their excursions almost as soon as she started dating Alex. She knew exactly why. If she was going to duck out of class to go fool around, she was going to fool around with _him_ , and not her dad. It wasn't for the Grandmaster's lack of trying; he'd try to make plans with her, but Olivia became incredibly good at inventing excuses why she couldn't go. Oh, there was a test coming up, or Sifu Bomani would yell at her, or she just didn't feel good. For a while, her father persisted. But then, as if he finally understood, he stopped asking altogether.

Guilt washed over Olivia when she thought of that. Alex had been right; she and her dad _used_ to be close. But she was the one who'd decided to shut him out of her life. And God, what she wouldn't _give_ to go sledding with him down some hill in Arctika again. She needed that – needed _him_ – more than anything right now. But he was gone, somewhere far away, and she knew not where. And what if she never saw him again? She blinked back tears at the epiphany, and subtly wiped her eyes to hide them from Takeda and Erron.

"We're here," Erron finally announced as he stopped at the edge of a vast precipice.

"Whoa," Takeda said as he took a spot by the gunslinger's side.

In curiosity, Olivia stepped to the edge. Sprawling below them was green in all directions – green from grass and palm trees and lush plants – all densely crowded around a glittering lake that seemed to wink at her in the sunlight. At the northern end, she spotted a small cove with a waterfall fed by a narrow desert river, and birds of all varieties bathed in the shallows, hiding amongst the reeds if they weren't sunning themselves on the muddy banks.

Olivia exchanged a look with Takeda a moment before she bolted for the trail leading down. The teenage boy chased after her, and when she didn't hear Erron yelling at them to be careful or to wait, she pushed herself to run even harder in spite of her exhaustion. All she could think of was how dry her throat was and how thirsty she felt, and of letting the water swallow her up as it bathed and nourished her with its cool comfort. At the bottom, she forced her way through thick jungle, crashing through like a wild boar but not caring, frightening the animals that lived there. Takeda wasn't much better. He had started whooping and hollering in joy as they got closer, and as soon as they saw the lake come into view, they both waded into it like they'd never experienced water before in their lives.

The water wasn't exactly warm, but it wasn't exactly cold either. Still, it felt like Heaven as it gushed between Olivia's legs, soaking her clothes and her long, sweaty hair as she swam out even farther. It streamed around her, and eagerly, she cupped her hands together and drank. It was slightly muddy, yes, but as far as she was concerned, it was water collected from the peak of the highest glacier. It instantly soothed her parched throat and alleviated the pain coursing through her chapped lips while it cooled the worsening sunburn across her cheeks and forehead.

"You two act like you ain't ever seen water before," Erron called to them as he sat on a rock at the shoreline and carefully removed his boots and his gun belt.

Olivia and Takeda both refused to dignify that with a response, but then the latter floated to the Cryomancer and said, "Let's just stay here and hide out until our parents find us," he suggested.

"That sounds like a good plan," she agreed as she pulled her body upward into a back-float.

"That sounds like a terrible plan," Erron contradicted her a second later as he swam to them.

Olivia turned her head to look at him. He was shirtless now, and the sun glistened off his deeply tanned, heavily tattooed, muscles. But what drew her attention was the absence of his mask. It was the first time she'd ever seen him without it, and as she'd long suspected, he had a handsome – if not slightly grizzled – face. He needed to shave, of course. He had a few days' worth of scraggly brown stubble set across his cheeks and chin. But the Cryomancer noticed he had a scar cutting from his top lip towards his left nostril in a thin, short sweep, and a small dimple in the midst of his narrow chin.

"Why is that a terrible idea?" she demanded to know as he tread water beside them.

"Because this'll be the first place Reiko looks for us," he replied.

Olivia frowned as she looked at the washed out sky above. He was right. It was stupid to think they could stay here and relax while Reiko was undoubtedly on their heels. "Man," she whined.

"Oh, quit your bellyaching," he admonished. "Pretty sure we have a good enough head start to stick around here for the night."

"Well, _that's_ something," Takeda said, disappointed because he knew Erron was right.

The gunslinger shrugged. "Better than nothing." Then he plunged below the surface of the lake and reemerged a moment later with soaked hair. He quickly slicked it back and then scrubbed the dirt from his face. He then glanced at the two teenagers. "Make it count, kids," he said. "We can't stay long."

"Yeah, yeah," Takeda grumbled as he and Olivia both started washing the grime from their bodies too.

* * *

Later that evening, after Erron had built a fire a few feet from the water's edge and shot a few birds to roast for dinner, the three of them sat around, resting. Olivia was currently preoccupied with finger-combing the rats from her hair; she had done her best to wash the sweat and dirt from it, but because it was so long, untangling it without a brush or a comb was a huge chore.

"Oh, I _hate_ my hair!" she cried in exasperation as she angrily flung a wet lock from her face.

"I can give you a haircut," Erron offered with a smirk as he twirled his hunting knife around his fingers.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "No, thanks," she replied as she made a snide face at him. But she didn't vocalize her annoyance with her hair after that.

The gunslinger chuckled as he slid his knife back in his boot and then turned the spit that the birds were roasting on. "You remind me of your pa," he said to her a moment later. "You remind me a _lot_ of him, in fact."

His words piqued her interest, and Olivia looked from her tangled hair to him. "Oh?" she asked. " _He_ says I'm more like my mother."

Erron scoffed. "Well, you definitely got her mouth," he agreed. "But your mannerisms? The way you don't talk much about what's gnawing at you? That's him."

"Am I like Kenshi?" Takeda asked in curiosity as Olivia contemplated the gunslinger's words.

"I didn't have as many dealings with him as I did Sub-Zero," he said. "But as far as I can tell, not much."

Takeda almost seemed disappointed for a second, but then scoffed. "Well, good. I don't want to be like that deadbeat."

"Takeda," Olivia began, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder reassuringly.

"Well, what would _you_ call him?" he demanded to know, batting her hand away. "He just showed up in the middle of the night one day. He said my mom was dead and that I had to go with him. These guys? They were chasing us. Well, I think they were chasing _him_." He shrugged. "They attacked us. We both probably would've died if Grandmaster Hasashi hadn't shown up and saved us. The Shirai Ryu drove them off and took us to the Temple."

"Well, that was lucky," Olivia said gently.

He scoffed again. "Oh, sure, _real_ lucky," he said as he looked her directly in the eye. "You know what my dad did?" The Cryomancer shook her head no, so he said, "He ducked out in the middle of the night, just like a thief. No, just like a _coward_." He angrily threw a stick into the fire. "I haven't seen him since."

"Oh," she said, suddenly very uncomfortable. She looked to Erron for help, but he sat on the opposite side of the fire in stone silence. "I'm sorry," she apologized a moment later. She briefly remembered what Grandmaster Hasashi had told her about Takeda fighting his own demons. This was clearly one of them, and a good one at that.

"He didn't even let me say goodbye to my mom," the boy said. "I never got to say goodbye." Olivia didn't know what to say to that. Instead, she sat there in silence as Takeda wiped angry tears from his eyes. No wonder he kept hallucinating that he saw her everywhere he looked. No wonder he hated the very _sound_ of his father's name.

"What about you, kid?" Erron said as he looked pointedly at Olivia. "Any daddy issues you want to get off your chest? Since we're sharing and all."

She shook her head. "No, I'm good," she drily remarked, not wanting to talk about it.

"What I want to know," he continued as if he hadn't heard her, "is how you came to the Shirai Ryu. You _are_ Lin Kuei, ain't you?"

"My dad's teaching me a lesson," she grumbled, looking towards the lake.

"And you don't much care for it, do you?"

"Well, look where I'm at," she pointed out. "Kind of a harsh punishment for underage drinking, don't you think?"

"You'll thank him later," the gunslinger told her. There was no sympathy in his voice or his expression. "Take my word for it."

"Oh?" she indignantly replied, raising her eyebrow. "And what do you know of it?"

"Plenty," he said. "I grew up in a po' dunk little town down in New Mexico territory. Las Placitas del Rio Bonito. Probably ain't even there no more. There weren't much to do there but drink and shoot rabbits. And shooting rabbits got mighty old mighty quick. Shooting lizards was only a little better."

Takeda narrowed his eyes at him. "Is there anything you _don't_ like to shoot?" he asked.

Erron shrugged. "I ain't met the thing yet," he said. "But as soon as I do, I'll let you know."

"So you're saying you drank a lot?" Olivia asked before Takeda got on a roll.

The gunslinger nodded solemnly. "Like a fish," he said. "And I got in all sorts of trouble for it. Fighting mostly. But I _was_ drunk when I killed my first man," he declared.

Olivia didn't know what to say to that, so she looked at Erron for a continued explanation. He shrugged.

"I coulda swung for that," he said. "But I was just a kid and the witnesses told the Sheriff that the fella drew first but I was quicker. He had trouble believing it since I was still seeing double by the time he got there and arrested me. But they _was_ telling the truth." He winked at her with a vague smile. "But the Sheriff decided I was a _troubled_ boy, so he hauled my ass down to John Tunstall's ranch, hoping he'd straighten me out."

"And who was that?"

"A cattle rancher mostly. He came over from England and found his way to New Mexico territory. Took in lots of kids and young men just like me," he explained. "Hired us to work the land and protect his interests. Taught us to read. Even got me sober for a spell."

"That's where you met Billy the Kid, huh?" Takeda asked.

Erron faintly smiled again and tipped his hat. "Billy was like my brother, even though the sonofabitch was an impertinent little cuss to the day he died. But I taught that little bastard everything he knew."

"Oh, yeah right," the teenage boy scoffed. "He was the best."

The gunslinger scowled. "The little shit couldn't hit the broad side of a barn before I got to him," he said. "And even when he started getting a little fame under his belt, it still wasn't well-deserved. The obnoxious cur got credit for most of _my_ kills." He shook his head in disgust. "He went wild after John died. Drinking, whoring, killing. He started believing what they was printing about him, that he couldn't be killed, that he was a god. He'd lost sight of what we was trying to do in Lincoln County. He lost sight of John." He sadly looked at Takeda. "So I had to put him down."

" _Pat Garrett_ killed Billy the Kid," he argued. "Everyone knows that."

Once more, Erron shook his head. "Me and Patty came to an arrangement," he explained. "Pat knew he'd never get close enough to Billy to take a shot. Those two were once good friends, you see, but Billy didn't trust him once he got that Sheriff's badge and started hunting the Regulators down. Pat knew he'd wind up making the undertaker's acquaintance if he even stepped in the Kid's shadow. He just wasn't fast enough on the draw. Asked me to take him out in exchange for clemency because he knew Billy wouldn't shoot at me. We was on the outs by then, but I was still an outlaw on the run, just like him. So Pat was right. He wouldn't shoot. And then, Pat asked if I'd let him take the credit when it was done."

"Why would he want to take the credit?"

"Why _wouldn't_ he?" Erron challenged. "He was a lawman, and he had the governor breathing down his neck to make the problem go away. Plus, if folks thought he was good enough to take down Billy the Kid, they'd be less inclined to misbehave, now wouldn't they?" He looked at the teenagers. "Keep in mind, back in those days, reputation and word of mouth was everything. Patty _needed_ Billy's death on his belt something fierce."

"But why would _you_ want to give him the credit?" Olivia wondered.

"I didn't much care one way or another," he answered. "My conscience knew the truth. That was plenty good enough for me."

"But I don't understand," she now asked. "You said he was your friend. Your brother. Why would _you_ want to kill him? Even if Pat Garrett gave you your freedom?"

"Because Shang Tsung paid me to," he simply said.

"You sold out your best friend for Shang Tsung?" she said in disgust.

"You can't say that until you've lived the life," he argued, though it was apparent that guilt for it ate at him. There was pain in his eyes. "I tried to stop. I mean, I don't know. I tried to go straight. I did." He looked at the fire as he started pulling the roasted birds from the spit. "I left the Regulators after they left me. They left me to die after I'd been shot by one of the Murphy boys." He sighed. "It all had gone crazy anyhow. It wasn't what John Tunstall wanted for any of us. He wouldn't have looked too kindly on all the vengeance killing and the lawlessnes. Billy, though? He more or less lost his mind. Went and shot a bunch of people, real unfair like. And I got shot just because I was riding through town with him. So they left me, and I left them."

He shook his head. "And then, not long after Patty proposed I kill Billy, Shang Tsung came to me and offered me a job far away from Lincoln County. He said it'd pay well and I'd be rewarded with long life and other benefits. But to prove I was good enough, I had to do what Pat wanted and kill Billy." He ripped off a meaty wing and handed it to Olivia. "I got to thinking long and hard about how Billy double-crossed me, and how ol' Pat wanted to get rid of him quietly. Seemed like the right thing to do."

"Well, I hope you got your ten pieces of silver for it," Olivia now said in disgust as she bit into the bird. It was bland and gamey, but it was food and she devoured it hungrily.

"More like extremely long life," he corrected. When the kids looked at him in surprise, he said, "That was my prize for killing the Kid. I'm here in front of you, looking as good as I do, because of that deal I made with the Devil."

Nobody said anything after that. They merely ate their fire-roasted birds in silence, eating until they were stuffed. Erron insisted on it. He said he didn't know when they'd get another chance to eat, so they had to take every opportunity that they had. He made them drink their fill of water too to fight off dehydration. By the time supper was finished and the bones on the bird carcasses were picked clean, Olivia was so full she was downright uncomfortable.

"Best we turn in now," Erron suggested as he threw the scraps in the woods for the scavengers to find. "I think a good night's sleep will do wonders for us all."

"Agreed," Takeda said.

"How can you sleep after killing so many people?" Olivia wondered, her judgmental tone long gone and now replaced by a pensive one. Her thoughts were on the man _she_ killed and the nightmares and hallucinations she'd suffered since then. Would she ever sleep normally again?

The gunslinger gazed at her intently for several long seconds before he finally nodded in understanding. "Well, kid, you get numb to it after a while."

Olivia started to respond, but she was interrupted. The animals in the foliage around them abruptly went silent, even the bugs in the bushes. Erron's guns were instantly in his hands, and he looked around in alarm as Olivia felt a peculiar prickling creeping up the back of her neck. A faint buzzing replaced the stark silence, like the shrieking cacophony of cicadas singing in trees in summer.

"Mr. Black?" she nervously whispered.

"Shh!" he hushed her. He cocked his head to listen more closely.

"What is it?" Takeda asked a second later. The noise, which was barely audible a second ago, was already much louder and coming closer.

"Oh, shit!" the gunslinger cursed, jumping to his feet. "It's the Strega!"

* * *

 **Guest, aw, thank you! I'm glad you like him so much! I'm curious to know - and I hope you'll tell me in a review - what it is about him that you (and others) like so much about his character. I ask mainly because I'm shocked how well people have responded to him LOL**

 **Esha Napoleon, welcome to my stories and thank you for reviews on my most recent chapters. I appreciate it!**

 **Symphonica666, oh, you're too kind! I'm so happy that you enjoyed my Sub-Zero trilogy, and are currently enjoying this story as well. Well, as I always say, things are bound to get worse before they get better, but my goal is to always leave you with an ending that will satisfy you to the core of your being. So, we'll see how things pan out between Alex and Olivia and Subby ;)**

 **ROCuevas, you're damn right he will! LOL**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, LOL at your joke XD Oh, yeah, that part between Fujin and Morgan was immensely fun to write, so it's nice to see people enjoyed that too. And of course Fujin and Smoke have to throw shade at each other. It's a tradition! Oh, yeah, Anya may be mad as hell at her husband, but ain't _nobody_ gonna hurt her man. I was worried about giving her a new power, though, and it's going to be interesting to see how that affects her down the road. Thanks as always for your kind review! :D**

 **DarkAssassin15, you're very welcome. I always try to give credit where credit is due :D Thank _you_ for the kind praise! I don't know that it's my _best_ fight, but I'm glad you thought so regardless. You know, that's a good question. I feel like, since giving people her energy to heal them drains Anya of her power, that when she _takes_ energy from people, it will make her stronger temporarily. But, there's a price. As you saw, she took a trip inside that Tarkatan's brain, and it was decidedly unpleasant. And I think this power is only going to be something she can do only in moments she has the greatest need, like when her life or the life of someone she loves is in danger. **

**en-lumine, LOL at _your_ joke XD Yeah, I hope you liked how I handled Kenshi this chapter since I know he's your dreamboat. :) Thanks again for your help with the dream sequence in the beginning. Do you think I succeeded in what we talked about, specifically with showing Olivia's feelings about Subby?**

 **iceangelmkx, haha thanks! Yeah, with Kenshi's puppetmaster fatality, I almost did the whole thing, but then I thought that would probably be overkill since I just did the fan blade one only seconds prior LOL With Fujin and Morgan's conversation in the beginning, I just thought of how I'd feel if my dad was like our favorite Wind God and if he tried to have the same exact discussion with me. Even with my dad being as stern as he is, I hate talking about romance with him. To say nothing of sex! LOL**

 **Hell-on-Training-Wheels, oh, it's okay! I'm not keeping score (though your impersonation of the White Rabbit in _Alice in Wonderland_ never ceases to crack me up). I graciously accept your cookies, though, nom nom nom. XD Thank you for the three reviews in one. I'm glad I conveyed Kenshi's struggle adequately, and that you enjoyed the way I described Hanzo during his "come to Jesus" meeting with Kuai Liang. As you know, I felt like a retarded chimpanzee hammering away at the keyboard over that one. Sweetness on the creepy factor in 17. *wickedly rubs hands at the thought of your goosebumps* Most of all, I'm happy that you enjoyed the battle scene so much. Yeah, they're definitely a pain in the ass to write, but knowing that you could clearly see the fight in your head makes all that hard work worth it! Thanks again for your help in _this_ chapter. Did you think the sledding bit worked well? **

**Screamin4orks, welcome to my stories! I'm so glad to have you. And you're so very kind with your praise. I'm happy that my work has been so easy and enjoyable for you to read. Thank you so much for your review! XD**


	20. What's Gonna Happen to Erron's Hat?

**Author's Note: An alternate title for this chapter could be "The Strega," but I thought going with the theme of Erron's hat would be funnier. What _did_ happen to Erron's hat? ****We shall see. ;)** **You're welcome, Hell-on-Training Wheels. And thank you for your help on this chapter!**

 **So, real quick like, the song that Erron sings is called "Silver Threads Among the Gold," which was a really popular song during the 1800's, and among Billy the Kid's favorites. The philosophy that Olivia recites is from Marcus Aurelius' _Meditations_ , and the thing that Takeda recites is a Shinto proverb. **

* * *

"Goddammit!" Erron cursed as the incessant chattering that was the Strega's cries grew ever louder.

Even now, only seconds after they'd announced their presence, his brain already grew swollen and hot with a stinging, burning itch that he couldn't scratch no matter how hard he tried. He'd only had the displeasure to deal with these creatures once before, and once was enough. He wasn't anxious to revisit that encounter ever again.

"This is bad, isn't it?" the girl, Olivia, muttered as she looked at him with wide, uncertain eyes. Unwittingly, she huddled against Takeda, who looked at the gunslinger with equal fear.

"Give it a minute," he drily remarked as he looked around for some sign of them, some hint of their precise location.

"What are they?" the boy asked, already twitching uncomfortably. "That sound…it makes my whole head tingle."

"Big damn rats," Erron told them, holding his guns as he thoughtfully listened and looked around.

"God, it's so annoying," he complained. He futilely covered his ears.

"Shut up!" Olivia suddenly shrieked at him, clenching her fists tightly as she scowled at him. "You stupid jackass! I'm sick of your voice!"

"Why are you yelling at me, you idiotic, ice-coated little daddy's girl?" Takeda growled back, his lip curled into a horrid snarl as he took a step towards her and shoved her. In response, she took a good swing at him and connected to his jaw. Like a sack of potatoes, the teenage boy fell backwards onto the sand, and Olivia stalked towards him with a murderous frown on her face.

Immediately, Erron grabbed her and pulled her back. "Knock it off!" he shouted at them both, knowing it was the Strega causing this sudden burst of violence. He strained to think as the noise got louder still. "Their cry will drive you mad! And then it'll plant you six feet under! Block it out of your heads!"

But he had a little tiger by the tail, and she was quite the wildcat, just like her mama. Olivia clawed at his hands, which he'd wrapped around her middle, and kicked at him as he lifted her off the ground. She struggled and flailed and fought so hard against him that he felt like he was trying to rope a pissed-off bull, and it took all of his strength to keep her from getting free. He was just glad she couldn't use her powers right now. She'd have killed both men by now if she could.

"Listen to me, kid!" he yelled at her. "These bastards attack by the thousands. Their cry will make you violent and insane. They'll burn your brain until you die!"

While Olivia was preoccupied with Erron, Takeda got on his feet and stalked towards them, the homicidal fury written plainly across his face. He lunged for the Cryomancer, but Erron instantly released her long enough to pistol-whip the boy in the side of the head. Again, he fell to the ground, this time writhing in pain as he clutched his skull.

"You'll thank me later, kid," the gunslinger hissed.

He had to find the Strega. Now. He had to find them and kill the alpha male. Cut off the head of the proverbial snake before their irritating cries completely melted his and the kids' brains. Trouble was, the Strega were everywhere and nowhere, hidden in the trees only God knew where. And he didn't have the luxury of time to pinpoint their location.

Erron groaned, knowing exactly how Takeda felt. "Don't think about it," he gasped, laboring to speak. "You've got to think about anything else…a poem, a song…Just tune them out. Don't let them burn your minds!"

That was easier said than done. The noise scraped down his spine like nails on a chalkboard and set his skin into miles of gooseflesh. Even as his skin crawled uncomfortably, he unintentionally dropped Olivia and then stumbled around the beach looking at the trees for some sign of the Strega. He muffled the sound with his hands, but it did fat lot of good. The noise easily broke through and burrowed its way into his brain.

"It hurts," the girl then whined, cringing as she scrubbed at her scalp like a lunatic.

Beside her, Takeda gasped and collapsed to his feet, covering his ears. "Stop!" he suddenly shrieked. "Make them stop!"

Erron could scarcely hear him over the cacophony. The Strega chattered on, an endless chant that lifted into the sky like the threatening rattle of a rattlesnake, their cries boring holes through his brains the longer they carried on. He staggered across the sandbar as his head spun and the first pangs of dizziness set in. The chattering…it woke some demon in his skull, and the thing scritched and scratched to get out.

In desperation, he aimed his revolvers towards the trees and began to sing to block out the sound. "Darling, I am growing old…" A loud explosion filled his ears as he fired his first shots. Then he whirled around and continued, "silver threads among the gold…" More bullets left his guns. He faced the waterfall now, his voice lilting, "shine upon my brow today..." He fired his guns again, first one and then the other, and he felt the barrels start to get hot when he cocked back the hammers. "Life is fading fast away…" Bang! "But, my darling, you will be…" Bang! Bang! "Always young and fair to me."

Now Olivia shrieked as she fell over Takeda's writhing body, and she furrowed her fingers through the sand, grasping handfuls as if she were trying to dig her way to safety. Erron barely noticed either one of them as he fumbled to reload his revolvers. His hands trembled like they did years ago when he was trying to dry out, and he dropped more bullets in the sand than he managed to shove into his guns. Finally, a particularly high-pitched chatter cleaved his skull in two, and he wailed as he now collapsed into the sand.

"When your hair is silver white," he trembled, singing in a futile effort to drive out the noise. "And your cheeks no longer bright, with the roses of the May…" He groaned as the Strega's noise chittered through his brain like as many cockroaches. "I will kiss your lips and say, 'Oh, my darling, mine alone." He grunted and strained to fight out the sound.

As he sang, Erron noticed that the kids caught on to his example and were trying to do the same. Takeda started reciting something in an Oriental language – the gunslinger didn't know which one nor did he care – but Olivia babbled something that sounded suspiciously like philosophy.

She moaned, "You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." And then she curled into a ball in the sand with her hands pressed to her ears and tears streaming down her cheeks. "Daddy, help me," he heard her whine a moment later.

Then Takeda looked at her, and as if responding to her words, whimpered, "The bamboo that bends-" He cut himself off as he cried out in pain, but stubbornly continued. "-is stronger than the oak that resists." And then he started screaming as blood began dribbling from his nose.

* * *

Elsewhere in Outworld, as Anya quietly healed Morgan's cut arm, trying to make sense of what she'd done to the Tarkatan who'd threatened Kuai Liang, Kenshi abruptly stood up.

"Do you hear that?" he said in alarm as he yanked Sento from his scabbard.

"Hear what?" Tomas asked him. He and Alex, who were sitting by the river, waiting to cross the bridge into the desert proper, gazed up at him in curiosity.

"It's…a buzzing sound," he explained.

"I do not hear anything out of the ordinary," Kailyn answered him as she stood behind Tomas and tenderly squeezed his shoulders to massage out the ache in his muscles.

"The bamboo that bends…" he trailed off.

Instantly, Hanzo was by his side, looking at him in urgent puzzlement. "Is stronger than oak that resists," he finished. He studied Kenshi's face, even as the swordsman shook his head, cocked it, and pounded it as if to get something out of his ear. "I taught that to Takeda in an effort to make him less stubborn," the Shirai Ryu Grandmaster explained.

"That is strange," the Tetrach said, frowning before she glanced at her sister.

But as soon as the words left her mouth, the blind swordsman slowly crumpled to his knees as if a heavy weight had suddenly pressed upon him, and he began to scream. Sento clattered to the ground and he clutched his temples, rocking back and forth.

"Takeda!" he managed to gasp through his pained moans.

Anya was instantly at his side, trying to help him, and as she touched him, she immediately knew what he was screeching about. A noise, grating and sharp, unceasing and irritating, deafened her. It burrowed through her brain like a parasite gnawing at neurons and nerves. Her hair stood on end as her third vision cleared and stole her breath away. Kenshi saw the world through Takeda's eyes, which were, at the moment, focused on Olivia, who was writhing in pain and screaming on a beach for help. Unmasked Erron was inches away, also clutching his skull, singing incoherently like a madman.

But the Hydromancer couldn't release her hold on Kenshi, and that horrid chattering filled every corner of her brain, scorching it. And then it was rattling her, taunting her, calling her names, reminding her of the way Kuai Liang had murdered her father on that bridge all those years ago, laughing because he'd picked Frost over her and then kissed Kitana like a traitorous dog, asking her if she'd liked it when he'd humiliated Olivia before he sent her away, until Anya began to scream up at the sky. At first she was screaming in fear, and then she saw the man that was to blame, his face a cold white mask, his eyes chilling blue, his face full of worry so insincere that it was revolting, and so then her screams turned to those of rage.

"Anya!" she heard Kuai Liang yell at her from somewhere very far away. His firm hands gripped her and yanked her away from Kenshi, but that chattering, like a swarm of insects buzzing in her brain, still didn't stop.

"The noise!" she wailed as she thrashed in his arms. "I can't stand it!"

"Sister, come to your senses!" Kailyn shouted at her, but that rattling overwhelming her voice.

"Anya! Snap out of it!" Kuai Liang cried, shaking her slightly, and this time, she heard it.

Furiously, she threw his arms away from her and she lunged at him. "You!" she shrieked. "You killed my father! You sent my daughter away! She's going to die because of you, you son of a bitch!" Her fist was flying in the air towards his face before she even realized it, but thankfully, Tomas was there to pull her back.

"Easy, _můj sladký anděl_ ," he said as he restrained her, and she crumpled in his arms, crying. Kuai Liang just looked at her in astonishment, saying nothing as Blue snarled at him not to get any closer.

"Kenshi, break the connection!" Fujin was now shouting at the swordsman as the others watched in helpless horror.

But if the Champion heard him, he ignored him. Instead, as he trembled with blood streaming from both of his nostrils, he wrenched his face in concentration and lifted his hand. "Takeda," Anya heard him mumble. "Over there. They're over there, my son."

"They're going to kill you if you don't let go now!" the Wind God yelled at him.

"Just…a little…longer," the swordsman grimaced, his every word full of anguish.

* * *

Erron suddenly knew he was gonna die. He hadn't worried about death in a long time, and rightfully so. Shang Tsung's spell protected him, hid him from the Angel of Death's eyes since he was truly a young man, and kept nature at bay for all these years. But now, as the Strega chattered on through his head, the pain steadily increasing, he was once again reminded that he was not a god, that he was still a mortal, and someday the Angel would raise his scythe and cut down his soul. That someday was coming soon, he feared.

"Erron…" Takeda then gasped weakly. The gunslinger, also weak, tilted his head towards the boy and looked at him. Blood from his nose stained his face red, but sand stuck in it gave the impression of an unusual beard. "I…know…where…they…are…" he wheezed. Then he slowly lifted his hand and pointed towards the nearby waterfall. "There."

Erron narrowed his eyes at the boy. "How do you know that?" he growled skeptically.

Takeda closed his eyes and dropped his head in the sand, struggling to stay awake. "I…don't…know," he admitted. "Just…a…feeling."

Erron pondered on it for all of a second. If the boy was wrong, they'd all die. But if Erron did nothing, they'd all die. He had nothing to lose by investigating. So opting to go out swinging rather than dying in misery, he tapped into his last well of strength and used it to push himself to his feet. Fire burned in his soul and hatred churned through his thoughts, so Erron pulled back the hammers on his revolvers and took, screaming, to the waterfall.

The path the gunslinger stomped lazily meandered through the rainforest, running right by the waterfall, a two foot swath that was naturally occurring. Thick foliage lined either side, but the plants looked decidedly ordinary to him save for the pale green mist shining somewhere behind them, casting eerie shadows through the jungle. The painful buzzing continued, but here, it seemed greater, affirming Takeda's suspicions. Erron's head was well on its way to a migraine already, but now it was blinding, making it difficult to think.

A flicker of motion caught his eye then, and he halted where he was, crouching against a gnarled, diseased tree. It wasn't a good hiding spot, he knew, but no others immediately presented themselves. Someone could've been watching him from a thousand different spots and he'd never see them under the thick canopy of trees. Even still, his eyes gazed around, his vision slightly blurring, as he looked for whatever had moved.

And then he saw movement again. He focused his eyes on the trees in the distance, dark as death in spite of the green mist faintly illuminating the jungle. There, he found its source. Unnatural yellow, a stark contrast to the black trees around it. Eyes. Thousands of eyes just fixed on him.

Behind him, something squealed. He whirled around in time to see that one of the Strega had reached from a bush and gripped one of his boots, and it was pulling him slowly backwards from the path. On all sides around them, the dark tree leaves were no longer calm; now they rustled loudly and shook as if wind whipped through them as the squat bodies of the Strega emerged around him. With brilliant eyes full of murderous yellow, they scurried towards the gunslinger like rats, almost as if they were moving fast just to frighten their quarry.

Erron's surprise at his predicament only lasted moments before he remembered himself and started shooting them, and when that didn't work, he furiously kicked some in the face. They were ugly like diseased rats sitting on their haunches, with bulbous legions peeking through their fur like leprosy, and razor-sharp rodent teeth and claws too. He figured any dents his boot left in their faces was an improvement in the looks department. The gunslinger would've chuckled at his own wit, had he the time, but by this point, several more of the Strega were already crawling onto the path, their bony hands reaching for him, their deadly eyes leering at him mercilessly.

Erron immediately yanked his shotgun from his back and fired at the creatures. The shell burst in a blinding hot flash of light and sound, and ten of his enemies dropped like sack **s** of potatoes. A few of those that surrounded the unfortunate victims squealed when stray pellets hit them and scurried back into the bushes. The gunslinger was not surprised by this; the last time he'd encountered the Strega, they'd behaved like giant chicken shits, and that hadgiven him an advantage that he intended to play to now. Erron immediately fired more shells at them, and three of them stumbled, squealing and shrieking in pain, scaring off many, but a few braver souls merely scurried over their bodies.

Knowing a losing battle when he saw it, Erron deduced that his only viable option was to find the alpha male and kill him. The Strega were useless without him. They couldn't think on their own. So he quickly fired more shells at them and cleared a way through.

At first, they scampered away like gutless cowards, but as soon as Erron stomped past, thoroughly pissed off by this point, they quickly reoriented themselves and gave chase, bolting with unlikely grace and agility over the bushes and jungle vines toward the fleeing outlaw. He looked like a foal learning to walk for the first time as he staggered through the trees, the squelching mud dragging down his feet. Erron looked over his shoulder and then whirled around before firing more shells at the charging rodent mob, but the explosions only slowed some of the Strega. The vast majority of the swarm raced even faster now, easily closing the gap. And Erron, with his vision blurred and his skull splitting in two, could not overcome the terrain fast enough.

Soon, he felt warm, furry fingers and sharp talons ripping at his back and shoulders. Hot claws cut through his flesh like butter, and he howled in pain but still ran towards his goal. Suddenly, he toppled to the moist ground when one of the Strega gripped his hat and yanked him backwards into a tree. Stars blared blue and white across his vision, and his vision blackened for a moment, though not enough to hide the four hideous faces that now loomed over him, clawing at him like an angry cougar. More scorching pain cut through his arms, his legs, and even his face. For a moment, Erron knew he was going to die, and he welcomed the Angel's arrival, and he uttered a mental prayer to God to save him when he passed, the thousandth one since he shot Billy in the face, even though he didn't deserve forgiveness and he knew he was truly damned. But he only thought that for a moment.

The Strega's frightening eyes filled with surprise when Erron's revolvers were in his hands again, wildly firing at them even as they slashed at him like a piece of meat. Their eyes were even _more_ surprised when a lucky bullet caught their buddy in the eye and took off his head. Three other bullets cut through their faces just as easily. By the time their bodies fell to the ground, Erron had already climbed to his feet – streaming blood from multiple wounds – and was hunting for the alpha.

And then, just as the alpha, the biggest one of the Strega's number by a long shot, finally came into view, the gunslinger was met by a wall of even more of the rodents. It only took Erron a moment to determine that he was now surrounded on all sides, search for a possible escape route, and come up empty-handed. But he did not waste time thinking about it. He charged even harder towards the line, veering slightly left and scurrying up a small hill devoid of bushes or trees. From a jutting outcrop of sandstone, he leapt.

He landed hard on the middle three guards, crushing them with his weight and grinding them deep into the sand and water. The impact alone might have been sufficient to temporarily scare them off long enough for Erron to take out the alpha, but he was never to know. He'd landed in a crouch, and in his hand he now clutched a long sword with mummified flesh curled around the handle – Baraka's arm blade that he'd taken as a trophy after he'd killed the Tarkatan dog. With it, he punched through the rodents as easily as pie.

Paying no attention to the falling drones, Erron leaned to the right and swung with his weapon. Once more, it cleanly sliced through Strega. With a final flourish, he thrust the sword into the last Strega and twisted it hard, but getting the vile creature stuck to the end. To his other side, more rodents turned to swarm over him when the gunslinger swung his blade overhead, right to left, the dead creature still impaled upon the end. It crashed into his target, slicing bone, and all the surrounding bodies cracked fell down like dominoes.

There was sudden movement to his left. Erron looked at the creature that now approached. It _was the alpha_ , though it had to outweigh any the others by at least fifty pounds. A massive animal, it stood at least as tall as the gunslinger's chest, its body as round as a wild pig's. Coarse fur dusted with rusty pigment covered the length of its body, and its naked tail was smooth and black like an eel, but banded like an armadillo. It growled at him, and its chattering noise grew louder still, setting his heart thumping in fear, and it glared at him with wicked yellow eyes.

Impulsively, Erron started to back away, his footsteps slow and deliberate, as he withdrew his revolvers once more. But now there was a snarl to his right, and beside him was another of the Strega, this one solid white but only a fraction of a size of its alpha. It was closer than the alpha, its muzzle wrinkling ferociously as it growled at him, clearly ready to kill.

"What the _hell_ do you want?" the gunslinger hissed back, unimpressed in spite of the pain screaming songs of agony through his back.

He jerked his arm to shoot at the white one, but the moment he moved, both it and the alpha lunged at him with impossible speed and agility. Heavier than they looked, they knocked the wind out of him the moment they slammed into his body, and his revolvers tumbled harmlessly into the leaves. When he actually hit the ground like a log beneath them, he was certain he was going to die of suffocation. He choked as they chattered harder, and he anxiously tried to suck down air.

But the alpha male refused him the opportunity to breathe. Snapping, drooling jaws tore at his body, its teeth sinking deep into his shoulders, his legs, his torso, and even his face. Both Strega scratched at him with their talons, ripping open his leg and abdomen in several places and smearing his blood over their hands and his exposed skin. Agony ripped through his chest, his innards, and without realizing he'd done it, he screamed over the sounds of the Strega mauling him.

But the Strega soon found that even wounded as he was, Erron Black was no helpless victim. Amidst the frenzy, he somehow forced himself to roll onto his knees, his fingers searching through the dead leaves and detritus to find his guns. Quickly, they brushed smooth, hot metal and then curled around the handle of one. In a single, fluid movement he'd cocked the hammer, turned, and blew the white one's head off. It twitched in place as if stunned, and then collapsed.

The alpha didn't notice its companion's awkwardness as its last nerve impulses fizzled away. It instantly lunged at Erron's hand and sank its teeth into his wrist, its fangs piercing the thick leather gauntlet that protected his arm. The gunslinger howled as he felt bones crush and snap, and he dropped his gun once again. Blood spurted from beneath the brace's either end, oozing in thick rivulets down his arm and fingers. In desperation, he swung his left fist at the alpha at an awkward angle, and managed to drive it backwards.

But now, it pounced onto his back like a monkey, pinning him face-first into the crunchy leaves. At first, it rapidly dug into his torso, each swipe of its claws like white-hot razors slicing into his skin. But after a few seconds of that, it grew bored and lunged at his shoulder, biting him just to hear him scream once more.

The gunslinger was rapidly losing his strength and his will to fight, and he prepared himself for the inevitable. For years, he'd had so little room in his soul for anything beyond bitter regret and simmering fury, at what had been done to him from the time he was a kid, and what he'd done to others. His friend. His enemies. All of them. He was accustomed to that and had even found comfort in it, particularly in the nighttime while everyone else slept but guilt and sobriety kept him awake. But now, his memories of his life in New Mexico territory and his life in Outworld suddenly felt smothered in a stifling caul, the world around him tinged by blackness that oozed through the cracks in his soul.

 _And where in the hell is my hat?_ he vaguely wondered. It was surreal, the things you worry about when you're about to die.

And then, like a prayer miraculously answered, his fingers found his gun once again. His shoulder was stiff and hot, and it didn't want to budge an inch to let him grab it. But his stubborn will won out, and he curled his hand around it, lifted it over his shoulder, and prayed as he pulled the trigger. A loud shot rang out, cracking through the night, briefly illuminating the forest with a red-white explosion. And then, there was silence.

The Strega had gone quiet. Erron almost wept in relief at that development, and at the blessed silence that fell upon his ears. Then, he risked a look back, as painful as it was. Lying in the dirt beside him was the alpha, dead. And beyond, the remaining Strega quivered as they stared at him in fear, unsure what to do.

"What now, you little rat bastards?" he screamed at them. "What now?" He drew out that last word long and hard, just like a lunatic in an insane asylum. And then, as they began to scamper off like he knew they would, he began to laugh and couldn't stop. He had no clue what was so damn funny. And yet, he laughed and laughed into the dirt before the blackness finally took him.

* * *

 **Dr. MKDemigodZ-Warrior, I didn't describe them in detail in the previous chapter, no.**

 **ROCuevas, yes, they should!**

 **Esha Napoleon, thanks!**

 **Symphonica666, thank you so much! I don't know if they'll ever be that close again. We'll have to find out together ;)**

 **PunkRoseBlitz, hahaha I'm glad to know Olivia is improving with regards to her likability! I'm glad people see that she's starting to grow. No, you didn't tell me that about Erron, but thank you! I feel like I'm finally starting to get a good flow with him. It's taken a while, but it's starting to get easier.**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, you're right, she's got to stay strong and control her fear. This is something she's starting to learn as she makes her way across the desert. Oh, Erron's got a _lot_ of demons locked in his closet. Probably more than I have time to explore, if I'm being honest. As for the Strega, there's nothing Italian about them. I mean, admittedly, I've never been to Italy, but I had something entirely different in mind LOL As for your random note, I did _not_ know that. That's cool to know, though. It's a nice design :D**

 **en-lumine, well, I didn't _intend_ for any flirting between them, but if that's how you interpreted it, then God bless! LOL It's okay about the Cassie and Erron mixup. You seriously must have Cassie on the brain! ;) I'm glad that you like Takeda's development. What about in _this_ chapter? **

**Hell-on-Training-Wheels, what _did_ happen to Erron's hat? LOL I think you had a good point that Olivia is trying to hate Subby, but is struggling to maintain that. I'm glad that you liked Erron's back story. Yup, I did a _lot_ of research on Billy the Kid and the Regulators to make sure stuff was legit. _Young Guns_ is such a good movie! Don't worry, my friend. All of the questions involving Shang Tsung will be answered eventually. ;) **

**.Queen, you called it! ;)**

 **iceangelmxk, LOL, now, you know better than to think I'd let my characters just have a nice dream ;) Yeah, nobody really knows for sure if Pat Garrett killed Billy. Sure, he probably did, but since no one saw it...I exploited the obvious loophole and created a fun back story for Erron at the same time. :)**


	21. The Truth is Hard to Swallow

**Author's Note: I'm so sorry, my friends, for my delayed update. I've had a lot going on, to be honest, and it's caused me a serious block. I found out that I have a jacked up hip, which _may_ be the understatement of the year. If you don't follow me on Tumblr, then you probably don't know that because of a plethora of problems with it - not least of which is that it's actually cracked right down the middle (yeah, I've been _walking_ on a broken hip) - I have to have surgery in a few weeks. A total hip replacement, to be exact. Keep in mind that I am pretty damn young to be having that. So, you can imagine my stress. **

**Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. It's sort of filler, to be honest, but I had to do something - _anything_ \- to get the creative juices flowing again. I want to say thanks to my pen-pals for encouraging me and being there for me, and thanks especially to en-lumine who helped me with some insight into my characters' predicaments this time around. **

* * *

Kuai Liang wasn't quite sure what had just happened. Kenshi had finally stopped screaming and Anya…well, she was just this side of catatonic. Tears had silently streamed down her cheeks; she had gone quiet as well when Tomas gently leaned her against a rock, but now she gazed blankly into space. Blue rested her huge, fuzzy head on her master's lap, and Kailyn knelt beside her, gently pushing locks of hair behind her ear while speaking softly in the Hydromancer language. Kuai Liang couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand the sight of his wife sitting there, so small, so helpless, and especially since he didn't even know _why_. Frowning in fear and concern, he joined her side, ignoring the Seidan wolf when she growled lowly at him, and held her hand.

"Anya," he said softly, trying to get her attention. It didn't work, so he curled his finger around her cheek and pulled her face to look at him. Faint recognition hardened her lavender eyes, and she blinked once, but said nothing. Tears prickled his own eyes, even as he silently wiped hers away, and he pulled her to his chest, running his hands through her hair and kissing the top of her head.

"Fujin," he said as he looked up. "What happened?"

"The Strega happened," the Wind God said as he and Hanzo dabbed thick, clotted blood from Kenshi's nose with rags.

"By the Elder Gods!" Kailyn exclaimed as she grabbed her sister's hand and kissed it.

"What are the Strega?" Tomas tentatively asked either one of them. He sat sideways on the rock that Anya leaned against, his arms crossed, his face downturned in concern.

"Vile creatures," Fujin explained. "Their cry is annoying to the point of torturous, and it is incessant. If you listen to the sound long enough, it will damage your brain and drive you mad. If it doesn't kill you, that is." He inhaled deeply and continued helping the swordsman.

"How come we didn't hear it?" Morgan now asked him. "How come only Kenshi and Aunt Anya heard it?"

The god looked at his daughter. "Because they weren't attacking us," he said. "They were attacking-"

"Olivia, Takeda, and Erron," Alex finished for him. He furiously rubbed his eyes and then raked his fingers through his hair before he glared at the god.

Fujin looked at him with stormy blue eyes for a long moment before at last, he nodded. "Yes," he said. Satisfied that Kenshi was okay, he got to his feet and now approached Anya to assist her. "Somehow, the psychic trauma on Takeda's mind was so great that he was able to tap into his latent telepathic skills and reach out to anyone who could hear him. In this case, his father. It is doubtful he even knew what he was doing." He knelt beside Anya and pulled her face towards him so that he could gaze intently into her eyes. "The signal – for a lack of a better word – overwhelmed Kenshi's brain. And when Anya touched him, the noise overwhelmed her brain as well."

"Is she going to be okay?" Kuai Liang asked, swallowing hard.

Fujin nodded again. "She should be," he said. "They both should be, with a little rest. But she got it worse than he did, it appears."

"How so?" the Cryomancer asked, puzzled. "You said Kenshi was directly linked to Takeda. She wasn't."

"Yes, but he's an immensely strong telepath where she is only a psychometric," his cousin explained. "His abilities can span much farther than hers, true, and he doesn't need to touch anyone to see into their minds like she does, but because of that, as a defense mechanism, he's taught himself to shield his brain from psychic injury. Anya, inversely, never had such a need. So when the Strega touched his brain through Takeda, Kenshi instinctively shielded his mind from damage. But Anya couldn't."

"Well, what's going to happen to her?" he demanded to know, clutching his wife more tightly to him.

"It's hard to say," Fujin honestly answered. "I wouldn't be surprised if she's a little out of it for a while, as if she has a concussion. She'll probably have a wicked headache when she snaps out of it. Kenshi will too. Beyond that, I don't know."

"Can't you do anything?" he hissed, the slightest hint of anger touching his voice.

Fujin looked at him in sympathy and understanding. "I'm doing what I can, Cousin," he said patiently. "They're both _very_ lucky."

"And what about Olivia, huh?" Alex now snapped. "Is _she_ that lucky?"

The Wind God looked at the Elite in surprise, who was scowling. Tomas jumped to his feet and went to him. He rested his hand on his son's shoulder to comfort him, but the boy furiously shrugged it off with an incoherent snarl.

Kuai Liang cocked his head at him, stunned. It wasn't like Alex to behave so brashly; he was typically calm and serene, seldom angry and _never_ hateful. His actions now were born by true concern and fear. It was how _he_ himself had looked, the Cryomancer imagined, whenever Anya had found herself in trouble and he was helpless to save her. It was probably how his face looked now, if he was being honest with himself.

A nagging thought pulled at the Grandmaster as he looked at his underling in vague fascination, reminded of a time years ago when he was utterly certain that Frost had brutally murdered Anya. The rage he felt towards his sister back then could have matched the expression currently stamped on Alex's twisted face. It was passionate, Kuai Liang decided. For Olivia…

While the Grandmaster fought hard to avoid admitting certain truths, Alex didn't wait for the Wind God to answer him. Instead, he stormed to Kenshi and grabbed him by the lapel, pulling him up straighter. "What did you see?" he demanded to know, yanking one of his guns from his hip holster. Hanzo grabbed for him, but he furiously pointed the .45 at the Grandmaster's face to back him up. " _What did you see?_ " he screamed at Kenshi again when the Shirai Ryu gave him adequate breadth and urgently glanced at Kuai Liang for assistance.

He didn't need Hanzo to urge him to do anything. "Elite!" the Grandmaster immediately shouted at him. "Stand down!" Alex didn't listen to him, so he was forced to release his wife to Fujin and Kailyn's care, and rise to his feet to deal with his unruly underling. "I said _stand down_ ," he growled as he fearlessly stripped the gun from Alex's hand and then pushed the boy off the swordsman and into his father's arms.

"They…were writhing in pain," Kenshi finally croaked, tilting his head upward to face Alex, his own agony stamped across his face. The boy scowled but calmed himself, focusing his attention on the swordsman's words as he threw off his father's hands for a second time. " _She_ was writhing in pain. There was a…one of those cobalt collars…on her neck. She…was…reciting Marcus Aurelius to block out the noise and she was crying for…her father…to save her. And then…she lost consciousness." Tears dampened the red cloth masking his eyes. "Takeda too."

At the declaration, Kuai Liang winced in pain. The mere thought of his daughter crying for him even though he couldn't hear her, even though he could do nothing, ripped his heart right out of his chest. Was that the last thought racing through her brain, of hope of salvation at his hands? Did she escape the Strega, or was she lying comatose or dead in the middle of the desert, only God knew where? He turned to face his old friend, fighting off tears as Alex's question suddenly developed more validity. He didn't even notice that the boy had cast his desperate gaze to the sky, blinking back tears of his own.

"Kenshi," Kuai Liang softly began, "is Olivia still alive?" A part of him didn't even want to know the answer. He didn't think he could bear it if she wasn't. Memories of his recurring nightmares flooded through his brain, the feeling of him cradling her dead body all too real.

The swordsman grimaced and gently shook his head. "I don't know," he said.

Without realizing he did it, Kuai Liang covered his eyes and rubbed them, fighting not to break down. His thoughts were on saving Olivia, and on reconciling with Anya, and on getting the hell out of Outworld. But at the moment, all prospects of success were grim. And then, suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder, softly patting him. The Cryomancer looked and saw Tomas standing there with an expression of worry on his face to rival his own.

"Can you tell us anything else?" the Enenra asked Kenshi. "Can you describe where they were?"

"It was…" The swordsman trailed off, massaging the apparent pain from his temples. "I think…an oasis. There was…a lake…and a waterfall."

Kuai Liang and Tomas looked to Fujin. "Does that sound familiar?" the latter asked him.

The Wind God solemnly nodded his head. "There is one – and only one – oasis in the desert like he described," he said. "It makes sense that Erron would lead them there. It's an approximate halfway point between all borders."

"Reiko…" Kenshi mumbled weakly, and all eyes were upon him again. "He's chasing them still. He sent…the Strega to kill Erron…and destroy the children's brains so he could capture them easier."

"Is Erron dead?" Tomas asked, but it was apparent he probably already knew the answer.

"I don't know," he replied. "I don't know if anyone survived. My son…" And then, behind his travel-soiled red bandana, the swordsman wrenched his face into an ugly mask of grief and he started to weep.

But Kuai Liang had all but stopped listening. A hint of movement in the corner of his eye – a little girl – caught his attention, darting away. He looked and saw that the river and the bridge beyond had vanished into a vision of his office back home in the Temple, with sparkling sunlight beaming through the windows and setting the room into hues of gold, and he unwittingly stepped towards it. He saw himself sitting at his desk, hunched over papers that he scrawled upon in his hasty handwriting. Livy, he also saw, who was no older than five – so young, so innocent – ran towards him with a big smile on her face, her long brown hair done up in pigtails that trailed behind her like ribbons.

 _Daddy! Daddy!_ she cried as she practically dove into his lap, knocking his pen from his hand as the wind from her landing blew all the papers off his desk. He groaned when she hit his belly, and then frowned when he saw the mess piling on the floor. But she could scarcely be bothered to notice. _Look what I learned how to do!_ she cried in excitement.

Without waiting for his permission, she sat on her knees on top of his and then cupped one hand in the other. As she watched intently, her skin rippled blue and white fog wafted from her arms before cryogenic energy swirled above her palm in brilliant electric hues, gradually tightening and hardening into a pristine ice jewel that glittered in the sunlight.

 _That's very good, Livy_ , he said with a smile, the mess suddenly forgotten. _You learned how to make an ice ball._

 _It's small, though,_ she complained.

He chuffed and gently pinched her cheek. _It's just the right size for you,_ he replied.

 _Yours are a lot bigger._

 _Yours will be too, someday,_ he said. _But I think_ this _one is just perfect for now_. He flashed her a reassuring smile.

Livy thought about it for a long moment. _You can have it,_ she finally said, beaming.

 _Oh, good,_ he replied in a vaguely sarcastic tone, mildly chuckling as she placed the glorified ice cube in his hand.

 _Will you put it on your desk?_ she wondered, looking up at him hopefully.

 _It'll melt, honey,_ he told her. _It's too warm in here for it to last._

 _Well, you can keep it from melting_ , she argued. _You're pretty good at freezing stuff._

 _Oh, is that a fact?_ he replied, an ornery smile spreading on his face a moment before he tickled her side, prompting her to squeal and giggle, prompting him to do that again as he now laughed too.

And then he stopped, and she leaned back, gazing into his face with an adoring smile that he happily returned. Then she wrapped her tiny, spindly arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. In turn, he wrapped his arms around her little body, holding her tightly and closing his eyes in contentment before she pulled free long enough to kiss his cheek and nuzzle his neck.

 _I love you, Daddy. I'm going to marry you someday_ , Livy declared. _As soon as I'm tall enough._

He laughed at that. _I think your mother might have something to say about that,_ he replied, fondly patting her head.

 _She'll understand,_ she argued. _You're my daddy. You're my best friend._

As the vision unfolded before Kuai Liang's eyes, tears he didn't even know he'd shed rolled down his face, and he closed his eyes, remembering that day well. Her innocent remark had made an impression on him that he carried with him always. It made him see – truly understand – just how special the bond between them was. It was that moment that had informed every interaction between them since, and it was that moment that made him feel such pain when she had declared only weeks prior how much she hated him. And now, he realized, it was why he had failed her so terribly.

And now Kuai Liang understood that loving his daughter was like sticking a kori blade into his own heart. It got him nowhere, except awake in the middle of the night, recalling the years when Livy was the strongest, the smartest, the funniest, and the sweetest, yearning for them to return as he watched her grow into a woman anxious to test her wings in this great big world, knowing deep down that there was no way he could fight the slow march of time as it stole his little girl from him. And the Cryomancer stood there, staring at this vision, he found himself wondering why he had been cheated out of a daughter who loved him, and one he could love in return.

"Kuai Liang?" Tomas' accented voice called to him, yanking him from his thoughts.

The Grandmaster looked to his friend, suddenly remembering himself, and in humiliation, scrubbed the tears from his face with his fingers. All eyes save Anya's were on him, looking for some sort of an explanation, some sort of a plan. He had none he could give except that he _had_ to get her back. His eyes drifted to the bridge over the river, leading into the desert proper, and without realizing he'd begun to move, he bolted towards it, running towards that oasis, running towards his daughter. His little girl.

"Kuai Liang!" several voices called after him, but he didn't stop.

* * *

The Red Desert felt like the first of all deserts, huge, marrying the sky for eternity in all directions. It was blindingly white, but that was only a trick played on the eyes by the sun. In reality, it was gold and red, burning, and waterless, without features save for the endless yawning dunes made hazy by shimmering heat waves. It almost looked like an oil painting not yet dry, smeared into brown gradients of color, seemingly unreal. The occasional fire pit pointed the way, and it wasn't surprising to see that Erron Black had followed the old highway that cut through the desert many centuries ago.

Reiko crested a gently rising dune and saw the extinguished remains of a tiny campfire on the lee side, the side the sun would abandon the earliest. His quarry had burned the ghost grass, not surprisingly. It was the only thing out here that would burn, and it was the only thing out here that could be found in abundance. It burned with an oily, dull light that lasted for hours. Those who lived in and around the Red Desert told him that ghosts and demons lived in the flames, and they lured those foolish enough to look at the fire into the flames and to their death, so they all refused to look into the light.

Such superstition mattered not to Reiko; he was not interested in ghost stories told by the peasants. What mattered was that these remains were as cold as all the others he'd found. Yet, he'd gained on Erron Black and the children he'd so boldly stolen from him. Reiko knew he was closer. The Strega had failed in their mission, but not entirely. His magic had revealed that the chittering cries had – if only temporarily – incapacitated his quarry. And he drew ever closer to the oasis. Soon, he would overtake them all. With any luck, they would still be too weak to resist.

* * *

Even as she slept and blessed blackness erased all her anxiety and fear, Olivia was acutely aware of the splitting ache in her brain, and soon it became unbearable. Slowly, she blinked her eyes open, and the brilliant sunlight streamed in, casting blinding white pain through her skull. Hot sand buried her hands, and a sharp, prickling burn gnawed at her skin through her gauzy shirt. Weakly, she pushed herself on all fours. How long had she been unconscious?

"Takeda?" she croaked, her voice parched. The Cryomancer swiveled her head to the left and saw her classmate lying prostrate in the sand like she had been. When he didn't move at her beckoning, she slowly crawled to him and yanked him onto his back. Dried blood smeared his face, but when she placed her hand on his chest, she felt his lungs steadily inhaling and exhaling air. Gently, she shook him. "Takeda!" she cried, and he sluggishly opened his eyes, wincing and looking away when the sun met them.

"My head…" he moaned as he gripped his scalp. "God, I can hardly see."

"Yeah, I feel like someone buried an axe in my skull myself," she sympathized as she leaned back on her heels and looked around. It was true. She felt dizzy and nauseous from the deafening pounding inside her skull. She gently rubbed her temples, but it didn't particularly help.

"How long was I out?" he asked.

Olivia shrugged as she dropped her hands to her lap. "I'm not sure," she replied. "Where's Erron?" she asked in sudden alarm, not seeing him anywhere.

Immediately, Takeda forced himself to sit and thought about it, trying hard to remember. "I…I sent him…" He winced, looked up, and then pointed to the waterfall. "Over there."

"Why?" she asked.

"I think the Strega were hiding there," he told her after a long moment.

"What makes you say that?"

His eyes took on a faraway, thoughtful expression. "I don't know," he admitted. "I just…it was like I just _knew_ they were there." He looked up at her. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

The Cryomancer frowned. "I don't know what to think," she told him. "Your dad can supposedly do-"

" _Don't you mention him_ ," he hissed. "I'm nothing like him."

Olivia sighed and shrugged. "Okay," she said, deferentially wincing at his sharp tone. Her head hurt worse than after her brawl inside the Phoenix, and her hangover the next day. "We need to find Erron. I hope he's not dead."

She got to her feet and pulled Takeda with her. After they took a moment to get a drink of water, and Takeda washed his face of the blood, the two silently wound their way around the lake's shoreline and made their way to the waterfall. Apart from the occasional squawk of birds every now and then, the jungle was blessedly quiet, a far cry from the shrieking cacophony of noise caused by the Strega. Near the waterfall, they found a natural path through the trees, though it was narrow, prompting them to walk single file, and foliage grew across it in spots. Soon, it grew as dark as evening under the canopy, even though the sun was high in the sky above them. It made it hard to see the way, and so when Olivia – who was in the lead – tripped over something in the dark, it wasn't particularly surprising.

"Ow!" she yelped as she landed on her knee, her tabi boot slightly brushing the obstacle.

"What _is_ that?" Takeda asked her a moment later, and in sudden panic, she flipped onto her butt and drew her knees to her chest.

Even in the darkness, they could both still make out the vague shape of a grotesque creature lying dead on the path. It looked like a giant rat with wicked yellow teeth and claws, but pale, bubbly lesions peeked through dense brown fur like a horrible disease. Its mouth was twisted in agony, one eye wide with surprise. A large bullet hole had put out the other one and presumably killed the beast in the process.

"I think this is one of the Strega," Takeda deduced.

"And I think we're on the right path," the Cryomancer replied, still staring at the beast in trepidation, the shadows cast by the gunshot wound frighteningly large in the monster's face.

Olivia climbed to her feet again and cautiously proceeded forward. Soon, she and Takeda found more Strega bodies scattered about. Most had been shot, but some had been cut down by some sort of blade, more than likely the strange, curved sword that Erron had strapped to his back beside his shotgun. Eventually, she found his .12 gauge, and the blade not far from it. But Erron was nowhere to be found.

"Where _is_ he?" she asked in desperation. She looked to him as if she could coerce him to telepathically search for him, even though she wasn't certain he could even do such a thing.

But Takeda didn't have to do anything. Olivia had barely breathed the question when the Shirai Ryu gasped at something behind her. She whirled around – immediately regretting spinning so quickly because it set the dull throb in her brain into a roaring fire – and saw a motionless pair of legs lying in the midst of trampled jungle plants. Erron. She was positive. Those were _his_ boots.

"Oh, God," she muttered as both her and Takeda dashed to the mercenary's side. He was face down in the dirt, but he was still breathing…barely. Teeth and claw marks oozed blood through blackened, crusty wounds where his shirt was torn, and one particularly impressive bite had ripped his shoulder almost in half. Beside him laid the largest Strega she'd seen yet, but its rodent face was halfway gone. That was undoubtedly the work of one of the gunslinger's hollow points.

"Mr. Black?" she yelled urgently before she rolled him onto his back. When she did, she saw more of the same types of wounds bleeding from his front. "Erron?" Olivia then cradled him in her arms, vaguely noticing his absent hat, and tried shaking him to wake him. That didn't work.

"Could he be dying?" Takeda asked her when she hopelessly turned and looked at him.

"I don't know," she confessed, suddenly afraid. If he died, what would she and Takeda do? He was their guide, their protector, as they traveled through unfamiliar Outworld. They'd _never_ survive the desert without him. She swallowed hard. "Help me carry him to the lake where I can try to bandage him up and get him cleaned off."

"Do you know how?" the boy raised an eyebrow.

Olivia shrugged. "Sort of. My mom's a nurse and she taught me some things."

She looked down on Erron's unconscious face once more and gently removed his mask to help keep his breathing unobstructed. She had always been thankful that she had been born a Cryomancer instead of a Hydromancer like her siblings; it marked her as different and in a way, even more powerful than they. In her opinion, the power to conjure water whips and heal paled in comparison to the things she could do with ice and snow. But at the moment, what she wouldn't _give_ to have been born a Hydromancer Healer like her mother and her sister.

But like Erron had said once, spit in one hand and wish in the other, and see which one got fuller. That kind of thinking wouldn't help him right now, and therefore it wasn't useful to her at all. So while Takeda wrapped his arms beneath the gunslinger's armpits, Olivia gripped his feet, and together they slowly carried the heavy man out of the jungle.

By the time they reached their campground at the beach, however, the cobalt collar began to take its toll again. The effects of that cursed metal coupled with her still-raging migraine caused her vision to fade out at the edges, curling into blackness, and she staggered through the sand, dropping Erron's feet when she herself collapsed like a heap. Takeda, not ready for the shift, lost control of his own footing, and he stumbled and fell as well. The gunslinger hit the ground with a loud thud, but it proved enough to jar him awake.

"Oomph!" he grunted as his kohl-smeared eyes fluttered open, revealing his hazel green eyes in stark contrast.

"Olivia," Takeda complained, glowering at her, "what the hell?"

"I'm sorry," she panted as her vision recovered. "It was the collar…I just got so weak all of a sudden." She rubbed her eyes and then raked her fingers through her hair before she crawled to the outlaw's side. "You're alive," she said to him in relief as she gently patted his head and slicked back his blood-damp hair.

"So it would seem," Erron grimaced.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"I don't know the polite word for it," he replied.

Olivia swallowed hard as she looked at his plethora of injuries more clearly in the sunlight. There was a particularly deep and bloody claw mark cutting through his leg near his groin. It came frighteningly close to his femoral artery, she heard her mother's voice say in her head, and he was lucky to be alive. One inch further in, and he'd be dead right now. So there was no way he was walking out of the oasis today.

She looked at Takeda, who was now kneeling on the other side of their patient. "Go wet me a piece of cloth," she ordered. Wordlessly, the boy scampered off to do what she said.

Meanwhile, Erron weakly shook his head. "No, kid, don't waste your time," he urged her. "You and him have to make a run for it. Reiko's surely close to catching up to us now. I'll be fine. Survived worse than this."

"I'm _not_ leaving you here for Reiko to find and kill," she argued.

He scowled at her and tried to sit up, managing to prop himself on his elbows. "Now look here, you stubborn little cuss-" he hissed, but she abruptly cut him off.

"No, _you_ look here," she snapped, pushing him back onto his back with a little more force than was necessary. "You didn't leave _me_ behind when you should've, even though we both know that I was slowing you down because of this damn collar. So I'm not about to abandon you, even if you _are_ a grouchy, arrogant dick." Takeda returned then with a wadded up piece of cloth he'd ripped from his shirt sleeve, and instantly, Olivia began dabbing blood from the wounds on Erron's face. "Besides," she continued, "Reiko and you have both made it abundantly clear that neither one of us can make it through this desert on our own. After what I've seen so far, you're absolutely right. We'll die in a day. So like it or not, we need you, Mr. Black."

"How does your pa put up with you?" he wondered aloud, but his tone wasn't nearly as annoyed as it had been only moments prior.

"He doesn't," she retorted. "That's why he dumped me off on the Shirai Ryu."

"What can I do to help, Olivia?" Takeda asked, interrupting their bickering.

She paused for a moment and looked around, sighing. "We're gonna need a litter to drag him out of here," she finally said. "I don't know about you, but I'm not strong enough to carry him. So can you go build one?"

"I'm on it," he replied, and he scurried off to build a makeshift litter.

"Don't be stupid, kid," Erron urged again. "I'll be fine quicker than you think."

"I'm _not_ leaving you, end of discussion," she said. She slightly shook her aching head as she unbuttoned his shirt and started cleaning the wounds on his chest. "If my father taught me anything, it's that the Lin Kuei don't leave anyone behind."

"I ain't Lin Kuei, kid, in case you hadn't noticed."

"But you're protecting one," she replied. "So our Code of Honor says that now you're under _our_ protection as well. I'm sure my dad would agree."

Erron thought about it. "Your pa's a good man," he finally said. "Reminds me a lot of John Tunstall."

Olivia paused and tried to remember who that was. "He was your foster father, right?" she slowly deduced.

"That's right."

"Why?"

Erron faintly chuckled, and he even cracked a smile. "He tried to help the wild kids out, the ones full of piss and vinegar like me. Give 'em a purpose besides general hell-raising." He fixed his green eyes on Olivia's blue ones. "He taught me to read. My first book was this huge ol' thing he'd brought with him from England. It was a collection of stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Their adventures and such. Every night for a couple of months, he had us rugrats take turns reading out loud from it."

"My dad taught me to read like that too," she faintly smiled.

"John was like King Arthur," Erron said. "Noble. Wise. Kind. Your pa's like that too."

Olivia shrugged uncomfortably. "I wouldn't know," she said.

The gunslinger looked at her with hard eyes. "Yes, you would," he contradicted her.

"I don't want to talk about it," she said, cleaning his wounds with more urgency now.

"I think you do, kid," he said.

She stopped and frowned because he was right. "Did you…did you ever do anything that made him ashamed of you? Made him not want you around anymore?"

Erron scoffed but smiled again and shook his head no. "No, kid, that didn't happen until _after_ he died." Then he cupped his hand on hers and made her stop her work. "Pretty sure he'd be ashamed of me for killing Billy. And for all the killing I've done since then. But not before. Never before. He was far more forgiving than he had cause to be. Think that's probably what got him killed in the end. He didn't want no trouble, even though we was all itching to deal it for him." He inhaled deeply. "If your pa is as much like John as I think he is, then he's not ashamed of you. Disappointed, maybe, but not ashamed."

Olivia nodded, blinking back tears of understanding. "You don't know the things I've done, though," she said. "I _killed_ a man," she declared, and now the tears began to spill over, blinding her sight. Her dad might've eventually forgiven her stunt at the Phoenix. But how could he forgive _that_?

"And I've killed hundreds, maybe thousands," he countered. "Just for the money too. So I promise you that you ain't done worse than me, girl."

"I told him I hated him," she confessed, thinking that _was_ worse. Especially now that she was on her own in Outworld, realizing just how much about him that she'd taken for granted. "I told him he treats me like a baby, and not to call me Livy anymore, even though he's _always_ called me Livy, ever since I was born." She sighed, her head hurting even worse now. "But now that I'm here, running for my life from Reiko, all I can think about is him. What would he say to this situation? How would he handle _that_ situation?" She looked into Erron's eyes again and then hastily wiped away the tears on her cheek. "Reiko was right, Mr. Black. Without my father, what am I made of?"

He didn't answer her for the longest moment, but then he said, "I think you're starting to find out, ain't you?"

She nodded. "Yeah. And I don't really like it."

"Then change it," he said, his voice taking on an unsympathetic edge. "Don't feel sorry for yourself. Do something about it."

Olivia opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it. He was right.

Silently, she nodded, and then resumed her work of cleaning his wounds. Some were worse than others, and while he did his very best not to make a sound of pain, sometimes he couldn't help himself. When he did, he'd suck down a gulp of air, or wince and groan as he balled his hands into fists. He refused to remove his pants to let her tend to his wounds on his legs, though, and even though she wanted to fight him on it, that was one battle she couldn't win. So Olivia worked quickly and did her best to be gentle with all other wounds, following the methods her mother had taught her.

When she made Erron flip on his belly so she could work on his back, he spoke once more. "I'm curious to know about this fella that's got you into so much trouble," he said.

Instantly, Olivia's eyes went wide with surprise. "How did you-"

"Takeda told me about the picture he ripped."

"Why?" she demanded to know.

"Said he was the last person you wanted to be stuck out here with, so I asked him why. Seemed like a fair question."

"Well, he's right about that," she said. "I _don't_ want to be stuck out here with him. He's a bully."

Erron acted as if he hadn't heard her, and said, "So that boy in the picture is why you got sent to the Shirai Ryu?" he said.

She scowled. "No," she hissed. "I went to a bar and got into a brawl. _That's_ why I got sent to the Shirai Ryu. My dad doesn't know about Alex. And I'd like to keep it that way, if you don't mind."

"He's bound to find out sooner or later."

"Preferably later," she said as she wiped the area around the bite in his shoulder.

Suddenly, a familiar _arrrooooooo_ blasted over the oasis, heralding the arrival of something terrible. Instantly, Erron forced himself onto his back to look up, and Olivia jumped to her feet. She cast her gaze in the direction from which the horn's cry came, and saw that upon the tall, sandy cliff that overlooked the oasis stood an army of snarling, drooling Tarkatans. But she scarcely noticed them. Her eyes immediately found a figure dressed in black and red armor, his handsomely chiseled face gazing onto the waterhole, a smirk undoubtedly plastered on his arrogant face.

"Reiko's here," Olivia reported to Erron. "He's found us."

* * *

 **Esha Napoleon, thanks!**

 **DarkAssassin15, that would be interesting, but as you can see from _this_ chapter, they don't have time to make rat jerky :p **

**Da-Hybrid-Queen, I'm glad I could be of service! LOL I _should_ get Erron's hat back, shouldn't I? ;)**

 **ROCuevas, thank you, as always!**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, LOL I loved that pun about the alpha, "the big cheese." That made me literally laugh out loud. Sorry about the migraine, though.**

 **iceangelmkx, so how many days _did_ you stay up wondering about what happened to Erron's hat? LOL Yeah, hopefully Takeda and Kenshi's mental connection is cause for some serious feels now and later, but we'll see ;) **

**en-lumine, Helly is the one who gave me the idea for Erron to sing that one song. My original idea was "Home on the Range," but she told me that was too cliche, so I listened to her. Aw, shucks, thank you 3 But you're the master on writing Kenshi and Takeda, so when I write them, I'm trying to mirror you. I really don't light a candle to you on that front, I'm afraid.**

 **symphonica666, I'm simultaneously glad and sorry that you could hear the Strega chittering in your ears!**

 **Hell-on-Training-Wheels, well, I'm flattered you think the Strega make the Xenomorphs look like kittens, but I have two words for you: face hugger. Yeah, that's the very worst thing I can think of; an alien vagina strapping itself to someone's face and forcing little baby aliens down the victim's throat. Yeah, there's no comparison there LOL I'm glad you enjoyed the fight scene, though. I worked really hard to raise the tension.**

 **PunkRoseBlitz, oh, no worries, thank you for taking the time to review! I swear I don't _try_ to be funny, but people think I'm downright hilarious when I'm being dead serious LOL Either way, I'm so glad you get a kick out of it. The possibilities for Erron's hat are endless.**

 **Fenris328, I know, and I'm so sorry about that. It's been a rough couple of months. But thank you for the support.**

 **PinkRedRose2, your wish is granted! I hope you liked it :D**


	22. Fish in a Barrel

**Author's Note: This is a somewhat shorter chapter than you're all used to, but I finished the second section and, after trying to figure out what to write for a third, it occurred to me that it might be more interesting to end it right there. So, we'll see if the gamble paid off.**

 **Also, my hip surgery is scheduled for next week, so I may be on a hiatus for a while, depending on how I feel. We'll see. Thank you all, as always, for your love and support and well-wishes. I appreciate you all!**

* * *

Erron awkwardly tilted his head back to look at Reiko's army on the ridge high above, even as panic set firmly onto Olivia's face. The horn above blasted another long _arrrooooooo_ , prompting her stomach to do flip-flops into her throat. She glanced at the gunslinger, looking to him for an answer. "What do we do?" she yelped, her voice hitting an octave higher than normal.

"First thing is to calm your ass down," he drawled, even as Reiko, Skarlet, and several Edenians and Tarkatans started down the hill. The descent was blessedly treacherous for an army to safely travel down, and so they moved slowly. Slowly, but steadily.

"Olivia!" Takeda's voice suddenly cried. The Cryomancer turned and saw her classmate burst from the trees at a full sprint. In his arms, she saw, he clutched Erron's weapons as well as his tattered hat.

"Well, that makes the second thing easier," Erron mumbled after that.

The teenage boy practically dove into the sand beside them. "It's Reiko!" he breathlessly cried. "He's found us."

"Did you finish making the litter?" Olivia asked, too scared to utter the "no duh" she was thinking, as Takeda shoved Erron's hat onto his head. She suspected she knew the answer.

As expected, he shook his head no. "I barely just started making it," he reported, now handing Erron his guns and bizarre sword.

Olivia swallowed hard. What would her dad do in a situation like this? _I doubt he ever found himself in many situations like this_ , she grumbled to herself, but then shoved the thought aside. That wasn't helping her at all at the moment. Okay, then what _would_ he do if his enemies were closing in, if he was facing impossible odds and a battle he couldn't win, with no powers to speak of and just a couple of guns to assist him? Well, there was only one thing he _could_ do, she decided: run. That was all she and Takeda and Erron could do too.

"Okay," she said as her face twisted into a determined scowl. "Help me get Mr. Black to his feet-"

"I don't even think so, kid," Erron protested. She looked at him with eyes wide in surprise, and she started to argue, but he interrupted. "You both need to leave me behind and run. _Now_."

"I told you, I'm not leaving you," she argued as anger flushed her cheeks red.

"You don't have a choice," he said. "Even running as fast as you can doesn't guarantee you'll get away from Reiko's men, not in the open desert where there's nowhere to hide. But if you haul 175 pounds of dead weight with you, you'll be caught for sure."

"Then we'll just be caught," she stubbornly replied as she motioned for Takeda to grab Erron beneath one armpit while she took the other.

Suddenly, one of the gunslinger's .45s was cocked and in her face. " _No_ ," he firmly declared, his green eyes hard and unwavering. "You let me go now or I'll shoot you both, you hear? You both need to get away as quick as you can."

Instantly, Takeda threw himself backwards into the sand to kindly give the outlaw as much space as he liked. "Okay, we're cool," he said as he threw his hands in the air. "I'm backing up."

But startled, trembling not from fear but from sudden sadness, Olivia merely looked at him in shock. "But he'll kill you," she muttered, not moving away like he wanted. Tears formed on her eyes and began to spill over. He was an ass, yes, but Erron Black was the only friend she had right now. And you didn't leave friends to die. That's one thing her dad always drilled into her from the time she was born.

"Give me more credit than that, kid," he said, his face wrinkled into an irritated mask. "I ain't survived this long because of my good looks."

"But…but you said your friends left you to die-"

"This ain't the same, kid," he said. "I'm making you go. You ain't just leaving me."

"But-"

"Quit your caterwauling," he admonished, now lowering his gun. "You both need to get moving. Now. Reiko's not going to give you a second chance. And whatever he's got planned for you two, you know it ain't good. And you know I'm right."

"We'll carry you," she offered.

"Kid, you ain't even strong enough to carry _yourself_ right now," he said. "Until you get that damn collar off your neck, you're gonna stay as weak as a newborn kitten." He sighed and painfully propped himself on his elbows. "Here," he said as he thrust the first gun at her, and then the other. "Take my guns. Take my sword. You're gonna need them in the desert, so I sure as shit hope you can shoot them."

Olivia nodded. "Alex taught me," she said softly as Erron yanked the string of bullets from the base of his hat and handed them to her. "He's really good with them. That's why his code-name is Caliber."

"Well, good," he said, giving her another pouch full of more ammo. "And you damn well better take good care of my stuff because I _will_ be coming back for it eventually. My guns are 150 years old and worth a lot of money to certain folk. So if I find out you sold them on eBay, we're gonna throw down, kid," he warned.

He was halfway joking, she could tell, and it got a faint smile out of her. "No eBay," she nodded. "Got it."

"Now get out of here," he said. "You don't have much time. Reiko's marching this way."

Olivia looked at Takeda, who'd already gotten to his feet, clutching the sword and shotgun in his hands, and then looked back at Erron, hesitating. Before she knew what she was doing, she threw her arms around him and pulled him into a hug. At first, the gunslinger leaned on his elbows, almost as stunned as he was uncomfortable. But after a long moment, he relaxed and wrapped his good arm around her, hugging her back.

"Thank you for everything, Mr. Black," she mumbled against his shoulder, ignoring the acrid scent of sweat and blood that stained his skin.

"Keep traveling due east," he replied, not letting her go. "You'll eventually come to a huge gap in a massive mountain chain. Pass through it and veer south through the lava fields. Mind where you step, kid. The lava cools just enough in spots to look safe, but it's not. Z'Unkarah is just on the other side. The Kahn will keep you safe until your parents come to collect you."

"Yes, sir," she replied.

"And whatever you do, kid, _don't_ go into any tunnels," he warned. "I don't care how desperate you are. Just don't do it. That'll be the last mistake you ever make."

"We won't," she promised.

"Good girl," he said, finally releasing her. "Now, get out of here before I change my mind about shooting you." She nodded and got to her feet. "And, Olivia?" he called as she started to back away.

"Yeah?"

He sternly gazed into her eyes, and for a moment, some unspoken understanding passed between them. It was as if he were telling her it was her time to see what she was truly made of, and that he was counting on her to rise to the occasion. Finally, he inhaled deeply and said, "If you're gonna climb into the saddle, you best be ready for the ride."

Tears actively streamed from Olivia's eyes now. She knew Erron was forcing her and Takeda to leave him, and she knew the reasons why. And yet, she couldn't shake the feeling that they were betraying him just like his so-called friends did all those years ago. She gazed at him long and hard, but quickly, she nodded one last time to him before she turned around and followed Takeda from the beach. Both of them ran towards the desert, and neither of them looked back once.

* * *

Roughly ten minutes after Erron forced the kids to leave him, and a horde of snarling Tarkatans followed them, Reiko sauntered up the beach, his fists clasped firmly behind his back, his grating smile toothy and wolfish. He gazed down upon the gunslinger, who still lay helpless in the sand, his face blackened into a silhouette framed by the sunny halo behind him. "Erron Black," he said, still smiling. "It's a fine afternoon, isn't it?"

The outlaw scowled. "Everybody's entitled to their own opinion," he answered with a pained grunt that escaped him when he tried to sit. It wasn't out of any real desire to sit upright. Rather, he wanted to sit because his pride demanded nothing less in the presence of his enemy. Unfortunately, his body – particularly his shredded shoulder – didn't want to let him. With a frustrated groan, he fell back onto his back, completely vulnerable, a wolf showing his belly to the alpha. Angrily, he looked the infamous General up and down. "You look pretty good for a corpse," he said.

Reiko chuffed lightly at that. "I should," he said. "I paid for my life with blood magik, and I am stronger now than you can possibly comprehend."

"Then what do you need a couple of Earthrealm kids for?" he hissed as the General knelt beside him in the sand. "If you're so powerful and all."

"And why do you, who were blessed by Shang Tsung with abnormally long life and health, need to murder people – innocent and guilty alike – for money to survive?" he countered dangerously. Then he carefully pulled Erron's hat off his head and curiously fingered the worn leather as if it were a new lover.

"A man's gotta make a living somehow," the gunslinger cringed, wishing his guns were in his hands so he could shoot the rat bastard in the face. For a moment, he almost wished he'd kept them instead of giving them to the kids.

"I understand," he replied, "And I pass no judgment on you for it. But surely, Kotal Kahn's ruthless law enforcer wouldn't begrudge me the lives of a couple of Earthrealm children."

Erron's eyes narrowed into poisonous green slits. "I ain't no policeman," he growled. Bitter thoughts of Billy stung at him, especially in the Kid's final moments when he leveled the same accusation against him. Called him a traitor, called him a sell-out. Said he was Pat's lapdog. It wasn't true. None of it was true.

"No, of course not," Reiko smirked as if he knew the outlaw was lying.

Then he clutched Erron's hand and pulled him up so that he was sitting now, not lying in the sand. Whirlpools of dizziness spun through the gunslinger's aching head, and as he clutched his temples, trying to will it all away, the General passed him a canteen full of cold water. At first, Erron regarded it and Shao Kahn's son suspiciously, but he quickly decided that if Reiko wanted to kill him, he'd have done it already, and with more efficient means than poison. So he chugged the water down, barely pausing to take a breath.

"I have a plan, Erron," Reiko said when the gunslinger had swallowed his fill.

"You always have a plan."

"This is a good one."

"I don't doubt it," he muttered as he took another drink. He glanced at Skarlet, who stood only a few feet away, silently observing the scene. "And I'm sure you and your fine friends here have enjoyed spending your time running around, pursuing noble causes to that end," he couldn't resist adding. He winked at Shao Kahn's deadly redheaded construct. She scowled back at him from behind her mask.

"There is an artifact in Earthrealm that will make the blood magik that sustains me permanent," he explained, ignoring Erron's rebellious tone. "It will grant me immortality and godhood. Takahashi Kenshi, one of Raiden's Champions, is the only mortal alive who knows its location. It is true that I kidnapped his son, Takeda, and his classmate, Olivia, to use as leverage against him. But I have no desire to hurt either of them. I assure you, as I assured their parents, that once I have what I want, the children will be returned safely to Earthrealm."

Erron regarded him like an angry copperhead curled around a nest of eggs. "You may be able to fool these people you got fighting for you," he began as he weakly gestured towards the Edenians who'd overrun the beach. "But you're not fooling me. If the Earthrealm gods don't want anyone to get their hands on whatever it is you're looking for, then that something is almost guaranteed to destroy everything and everyone."

"What do you care what I do to the Realms?" he challenged, raising his eyebrow. "What has Earthrealm or Outworld ever done for you, really? You're an outcast, Erron Black, rejected by law-abiding citizens and criminals both. They left you to die. On more than one occasion, I understand. Even the children you've fought so hard to protect have abandoned you in your hour of need. So I'm curious to know why you even care if I burn it to ash or not."

"As one of the people who _live_ in the Realms, I ain't itching to watch you destroy it all."

Reiko frowned and cleared his throat. "I spent many years living in the wilderness after my father died, meditating on what will become of the Realms if I am successful," he admitted. "And I will tell you what I learned: When a man lives with the wilderness he comes to an acceptance of death as a part of living, he sees the leaves fall and rot away to build the soil for other trees and plants to be born. The leaves gather strength from sun and rain, gathering the capital on which they live to return it to the soil when they die. Only for a time have they borrowed their life from the sum of things, using their small portion of sun, earth, and rain, some of the chemicals that go into their being - all to be paid back when death comes. All to be used again and again, in a neverending cycle of destruction and creation. It's the ultimate paradox: life cannot exist without death, peace without chaos, good without evil." He paused and then his irritating smirk returned to his face. "I will destroy the Realms, yes. But from their ashes, life will begin anew. It will be shaped in _my_ image, in _my_ vision of what is right and what is wrong. And I will spare those who have helped me, and punish with impunity those who have stood in my way."

Erron stared back at him for a long moment, certain this was some sort of cruel joke, and he was the butt of it. But when the silence held out, it occurred to him that Reiko was serious, and fiery anger licked his soul. "You know, when I hear you speak, I'm suddenly reminded that some of the people I respected most had a real problem with authority," he hissed.

The General recoiled, truly affronted by the insult. "I know we're not friends, you and I, but have I ever done you wrong?" he asked.

"No, but not from a lack of trying," he shot back.

"Once, not so long ago, we served on the same side, loyal to my father."

"What is it you want from me?" he demanded to know a second later, rapidly growing impatient with Reiko.

"I want you to help me capture the children," he said plainly. "You and I both know they can't survive out there without a guide, and their survival – at least for the time being – is paramount." He then focused his eyes on Erron's. "And once they are safely in my care once more, I want you to help me to persuade Kenshi to reveal the location of Shinnok's amulet, using any means necessary."

"The Elder God, Shinnok?" the gunslinger scoffed in disbelief. "Well, _that_ ought to be interesting." He gently shook his aching head. "It's a fool's errand."

Reiko smiled and chuffed, but this time his grin was sincere, not arrogant. "Well, it wouldn't be my first."

"I ain't interested," he stubbornly replied, _not_ amused.

"You're a mercenary," he countered. "Mercenaries are always for sale. Perhaps we can strike a deal."

"You won't like my terms," Erron hissed.

Reiko searched the gunslinger's eyes for something, and in moments, the wounded man felt magic not unlike Shang Tsung's coax his soul into revealing its secrets. Erron gasped in pain that stemmed from deep within, stirring beneath his breastbone. His brain struggled furiously, willing every fiber of his being to fight the intruder even though the situation was hopeless, much like the 300 Spartan warriors did in that one ancient battle Mr. Tunstall liked to talk about. But there was no stopping the General; in seconds, Reiko got what he wanted.

"You feel loyalty towards the False Emperor," he deduced, mildly amused.

"The only loyalty I feel is to the highest bidder," he stubbornly growled.

"Then what if I offered to pay you far more than Kotal Kahn?" he offered. "You will live like a king in my employment. You know I always pay my debts, and I have more than enough money to make good on my promises."

"I already took the Kahn's contract," Erron retorted.

"There is no shame in abandoning it."

"No point either," he countered. "In my line of work, a man is only as good as his word. If I betray the Kahn, then no one will touch me with a ten foot pole. And then what'll I do?"

"If you come to work for me, you'll never have to worry about finding employers again," Reiko said. "I will always have work for you. I can make you the Captain of my Guards."

The offer was tempting, Erron had to admit. Reiko, like his father Shao Kahn, had more than enough wealth than he knew what to do with. It came from years and years of plundering and taxing the lands in the former Emperor's control. To say he was rich was an understatement; the General was loaded, and he would undoubtedly pay him more than Kotal Kahn could ever dream of. Reiko was right; he'd live like a king in his own right.

Greedily, Erron found himself opening his mouth to take him up on the offer. But then he remembered how the General had called him a policeman – Kotal Kahn's policeman. Same as Billy. The thought made him snarl. He wasn't no sell-out. He had questionable ethics, to be sure, and he was morally appalling to most good folk in the Realms. But he wasn't no turn-coat, sell-out, _lawman_ lapdog keeping the peace for anyone. Erron Black did what he liked, _when_ he liked, and ain't nobody was gonna think otherwise.

He looked Reiko squarely in the face. "I don't rightfully understand you," he admitted. "But I _will_ endeavor to make you understand me. I said _no_. My word is all I really have left that means a lick of anything."

The General inhaled uncomfortably as if he couldn't believe he'd been rejected. "You would do well to take me up on my offer before I come to my senses," he warned.

"You seem just as likely to lose them," he countered.

Reiko chuckled. "You're truly a man of honor, Erron Black."

"Coming from you, I doubt that means much," he responded. "But I appreciate the civility nonetheless."

"This is your last chance, Erron," he declared. "This is more chances than I give most people. Next comes the unpleasantries."

"That's mighty nice of you for giving me so many chances, General," he sarcastically replied. "But the answer's still no."

The smile faded from Reiko's face and he tensed perceptibly. "Then so be it," he said.

And with that, Erron suddenly felt something hard and unyielding clamp itself around his neck, squeezing out his air. He gasped when he realized what was happening to him, and then he thrashed backwards onto the sand, grasping for the mysterious band choking the life from him. When that accomplished nothing, he took a swing at Reiko, who easily blocked it and then wrestled him down. A satisfied sneer crossed the General's face as he loomed large over the gunslinger's face. Gasping and clawing for air that wouldn't come, he felt his feet start to go numb, the haunting tingling spreading up his legs and to his torso, even as his vision started to fade into darkness. Only thirty seconds had passed since his ordeal began, but to Erron, it had lasted far longer than he'd been alive. Blessed eons passed before his sight went completely dark.

* * *

 **Author's note: Hell-on-Training-Wheels, please don't kill me! *dodges rotten fruit and vegetables* LOL**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, I hope it delivered!**

 **Da Hybrid Queen, thank _you_ for reading my work! :D Yeah, Erron's got that Wolverine healing (though not quite as fast). Lucky for him, yes? ;) I'm glad that you're seeing them all grow. They _have_ come a long way, and my goal was always for them to grow into better versions of themselves. I think both Takeda _and_ Olivia are going to have awkward reunions with their fathers, but Takeda definitely will have the worst of it I feel. Thank you for the well-wishes about my surgery. I'm nervous, to say the least! **

**PinkRedRose2, thank you so much!**

 **ROCuevas, hopefully!**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, LOL, glad to know the Advil's helping. :D Yup, like the kids, Daddy Zero has to grow as a character too. Obviously, his transformation can't be immediate, but he's starting to come around. I definitely wanted to make Alex more three-dimensional, and showing him pissed off was one way to do it (not to mention one way to show the Grandmaster how he really feels about Olivia). In your review, you said, "Takeda is quite the interesting case of how not knowing the other of the story can badly effect somebody." In what ways are you talking about?**

 **en-lumine, thank you for the reminder. You know how teachers are: do as I say, not as I do! I sometimes forget myself to listen to the lessons I teach you guys. But you're definitely right. Not every chapter needs to be chock-full of action and adventure. Thank you for all the advice you gave about internalizing their individual struggles. That bit about Subby running into the desert was largely inspired by our conversations! :)**

 **iceangelmkx, well now you can rest well because now you know the fate of Erron's hat. ;) You can thank en-lumine for the character development in the last chapter. She kind of advised me to mess up Anya and Kenshi like that. I'm glad you want to hug Kenshi, though. Means I've done something right! :D**

 **Symphonica666, thank you so much! I don't know if Subby sees her like a grown woman _yet_ \- at least not entirely - but I think he's starting to accept the mere thought. But I'm rooting for a happy reunion between them as well. Erron is a bit tricky to balance out; I want him to stay true to his character in the game, but on the same token, I want to make him multi-dimensional. He doesn't strike me as completely villainous, and I think that part of him - the part that was raised by John Tunstall - wants to do good for people. I think he started out looking at these kids like a simple payday, but after spending time with them, talking to them, etc., he's starting to care a little bit more about them than most people. At least, that's what I hope! **

**Reptaliator, oy veh, honestly for the last year, you've left me some absolutely bewildering reviews on my stories, and the maddening part is that you always sign in as a guest so I can't even PM you to answer your questions and/or clarify my decisions to do certain things. But as for _this_ latest review, my story isn't finished yet; on the contrary, it's maybe halfway done. To answer your question, I gave Sub-Zero a beard because that's how he's depicted in _Mortal Kombat X._ I'm sorry you think it makes him look wussy, but I try to stay at least somewhat faithful to the games lest I veer completely away from the source material. **

**Esha Napoleon, thanks!**


	23. Turning Point

**Author's Note: Thanks to everyone for the lovely hate mail over Erron's death. LOL I'm just kidding. Nobody did that. So thank you all. I half expected to get pelted with rotten fruit!**

 **My surgery went well, though there were a few complications. Like, I woke up on the operating table, and the surgeon had trouble getting my legs the same length (and I'm not quite convinced he succeeded), and then my blood pressure plummeted, and I spiked a really high fever. But I'm better now. And I'm recovering quickly. So I just wanted you all to know that I appreciate everyone's well-wishes.**

 **So, to say thanks, here's an update. I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

Kuai Liang stood panting at the edge of the cliff staring out eastward over the sun-sparkled water of the oasis. Several days in that direction lay Z'Unkarah, which clung to the mountains for safety. Behind him – how far, he could not say – were his comrades that he'd abandoned only a day prior. He wasn't quite certain how he'd arrived here without any sort of direction, but he suspected it was his Dragon Medallion showing him the way; it was as if Eidotheia, the Blue Dragon, the guardian within it, was unconsciously guiding him through the desert, granting him the strength to keep running, even when he thought his legs would give out. He'd only stopped a few times, just long enough to drink his fill of water and cool himself off when he got too hot, and to sleep a few short hours here and there. And then he was on the move once more, racing through the dunes under the scorching white sun.

The Cryomancer felt every gray hair on his head prickling at his scalp as he quickly scurried down the switchbacks to the bottom and made his way to the oasis a short distance away. The light from the desert was a shimmering haze that seemed solid, that seemed to claw the nerves from his skin. Around him, the wind swirled gritty dust into dancing whirlwinds. It howled a lonesome song, one vast vortex sucking inward.

He made his way into the lush trees, the only spot of pleasant color in this otherwise drab landscape. The underbrush had been badly trampled, and recently; deep wagon ruts broke through the wider spaces between the trees, and the bushes were snapped and broken, if not crushed altogether by thousands of feet. A horde. A _Tarkatan_ horde. Coming for his daughter. Kuai Liang felt sick at the discovery, and tried to find an alternate theory as to who had disturbed the oasis. But deep down, he knew he was only deluding himself.

And were they still here? From the cliff above, the oasis had looked free of danger. But had Reiko stationed guards to ward off any unwanted guests? At the thought, Kuai Liang's powers surged through his arms and hands, staining them an electric blue wreathed in fog and unnatural light. He crept along silently, Indian-stepping over scattered leaves and sand, looking around for any sign of a threat.

The Grandmaster should've been looking upward to the trees. Without warning, something heavy and huge dropped on him from above, jamming something sharp into his back, pushing him face-first into the ground. Kuai Liang gasped, struggling to inhale but only pathetically croaking, as he felt his hot blood spill from the wound near his shoulder and spine. The pain was blindingly jagged and cruel, but he still forced himself to turn over to see his attacker. Above him stood an Edenian holding a long, bone-handled knife now stained with his blood.

The red-clad man, evidently not as drained of energy as the Cryomancer, evilly glared at him for a long moment before he scrambled towards him. With a snarl, he crossed his arms before him, and as he did, he produced another long knife like a machete in his other hand. Then, without giving Sub-Zero the chance to respond in kind, he gracefully stepped around as if wielding two swords and swung one at his opponent. The Grandmaster barely had time to duck away from the blow before the Edenian stabbed him through the throat, and he quickly produced a kori sword in his hands and tried to issue a counterstrike. He failed, though, when the man blocked him and then snap-kicked him in the nose, knocking him onto his back once more.

He lost his sword when he fell, and he whimpered as new pain surged through his face, gushing blood. He scarcely noticed the inferno in his back anymore. But even still, he blindly flung his ice-charged palm towards the Edenian, silently guided by his Dragon Medallion. Immediately, a layer of heavy, wet snow sprayed from his hand and then coated the ground, and a gust of wind exploded towards the warrior. The blast of air rolled the snow into hard spheres like bowling balls that knocked the enemy off his feet when they slammed into his shins.

The man cried out in pain, but as he fell, he tossed one of his knives at Sub-Zero, who'd staggered to his feet by this point and wiped the blood and tears from his eyes. Immediately, the Cryomancer flipped from its path and it sailed harmlessly into a dead tree, thudding as it cut into the bark. Sub-Zero barely noticed it, though, because the second he landed he stomped the ground with his powers. Immediately, razor-sharp _penitentes_ _, gnashing cones of ice_ like rows of crocodile teeth, snapped at the Edenian.

The man, however, leapt into the air and twisted over them, his knife grasped firmly in his outstretched hand, cutting towards the Grandmaster's face. Sub-Zero stumbled backwards just to avoid the outstretched weapons, but let himself fall towards the ice. His body phased out long before his own icy spikes threatened him, and he found himself sliding like a ghost through vibrating molecules. The familiar white glow of the layers of frost enveloped him, almost comforting him, but soon he emerged from his protective portal on the other side of his enemy. He wasted no time stepping into a spinning back kick that caught the unsuspecting warrior in the face.

The force of the blow spun the Edenian into something like a butterfly twist, his arms flailing like a rag doll. He groaned in pain as he fell to the ground – blood spraying from his mouth and broken jaw – and his second knife rolled from his grip. The man was helpless now, completely at the Grandmaster's mercy. But unfortunately for him, he was about to find out that Sub-Zero had no mercy to give.

As the man rolled on the jungle floor, whimpering and weeping in pain, the Cryomancer quickly retrieved his kori sword and then stalked back to his attacker. And then he stared at him furiously, studying the red clothes and black insignia embroidered onto his outer tunic's breast. It was the same insignia that had been pressed into the blood-red wax on the letter Reiko had sent to the Earthrealm Champions. This Edenian was one of the General's men. One of the ones who'd helped that madman kidnap Olivia.

Sub-Zero felt his lip curl into a barbaric snarl, and with an inhuman cry, he chopped his sword onto the man's neck. The man rolled, however, and he missed the spine. Instead, his weapon buried itself at an angle through the victim's head, not quite killing him, though his blood splattered the Cryomancer's face. He shuddered hard for a moment as if having a seizure, and blood poured from the wound in a river. It did not take long for him to die, but undoubtedly, the seconds that passed felt like millennia to him.

 _Good_ , Kuai Liang bitterly thought, wishing it was Reiko here in this person's place instead.

Blinking to dispel the last traces of blood and tears from his vision, the Grandmaster now gripped his broken nose and instantly popped it back into place. It crunched loudly, and more blinding hot tears filled his eyes. He groaned at the sudden pain throbbing through his face, but kept the noise to a minimum in case there were more Edenians lurking about. He spent a good moment recovering, patiently waiting for the pain to disperse. It wasn't long before he recovered his sight, though his eyes continued to water.

Suddenly, something caught the Cryomancer's eye, low in the branches of a nearby tree. A shape swinging slowly. A man, hanging from a pole laid across two branches by a rope around the neck. With a wordless roar, he charged towards the tree, grabbing at his powers, an icy kori sword springing into his hands as he leapt, slashing at the rope. He and Erron hit the sandy ground a moment later with twin thuds. The pole jarred free and clattered down beside them; it wasn't a pole, Kuai Liang quickly saw, but an odd, black-hafted spear with a short sword blade in place of a spear point, slightly curved and single-edged.

Letting his sword and his cryogenic powers go, he ripped the rope away from Erron's neck and pressed an ear to his old ally's bare chest while noting the grave wounds and bite marks ripping through his body's solid muscle. They had been cleaned, though, indicating that someone had tried to take care of him before he'd been hung. One of the kids, perhaps? It didn't matter. Not right now, anyway. He heard no heartbeat and felt no air coming in or out. Frustrated, he listened again. Nothing.

 _No!_ he inwardly shouted. _If he's dead, then what has Reiko done to Olivia?_

As hard as he could, Kuai Liang pounded his fist against Erron's chest and then listened. Nothing. Again he hammered and listened. Yes. There. A faint heartbeat. So faint, so slow. And slowing. But Erron _was_ alive despite the heavy purple welt around his neck. He might yet be saved.

Filling his lungs as Anya had taught him, the Cryomancer scrambled around to breathe into Erron's mouth as strongly as he could. Again. Again. God, he wished his wife was here to do this. He was only half-certain that this was the correct way to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on someone, and she could have just outright healed him. But she was catatonic with the others, possibly days behind. So it was up to him. Once, back in Tibet when he was a boy, he'd seen Sifu Halsey revive a village boy who'd been found floating in the nearby river, so he knew it could be done. Therefore, he couldn't let himself give up on Erron, the man who'd nearly died to protect Olivia from Reiko. So he breathed and breathed, and breathed and prayed.

Abruptly, Erron jerked and coughed. Kuai Liang instantly leaned back on his heels beside him as he put both hands to his throat and rolled onto his side, sucking air in an agonized rattle. Then he touched the piece of rope with one hand and shivered. "Those sons of bitches," he swore hoarsely. Then he patted his messy blond hair. "Goddammit, that asshole took my hat!"

"Erron, what happened?" he asked, rolling him over.

The gunslinger squinted his eyes to block out the sunlight as he looked at his savior. "Oh, lookie what the cat dragged in," he scoffed a moment later. "'Bout time you showed up. That kid of yours was getting on my last nerve." Swallowing painfully, Erron took a deep, unsteady breath. His voice was raspy, barely audible.

"Where is she?" the Grandmaster demanded to know, his voice more urgent than before.

The outlaw took his time answering, instead breathing slowly and rubbing his throat. "I sent her and Takeda into the desert without me," he croaked after a long moment.

"What?" he angrily cried. "Why?"

"I couldn't walk," he replied. "And Reiko was coming down the hill for us. Obviously, he found me. Thank God his Tarkatans don't know how to tie a hangman's noose right, those fucking idjits."

At the declaration, Kuai Liang frowned. "And now he's chasing the kids, isn't he?"

Erron paused, and at first he refused to look at the Grandmaster. But finally, he swallowed hard and then swiveled his head to look him right in the eyes. "Yeah," he answered somberly after his green eyes fixed on Kuai Liang's blue ones.

"Dammit," the Cryomancer swore as he looked down. How far could Olivia and Takeda make it in the desert without a guide, with a cunning and ruthless general on their trail?

"At least I got something out of Reiko," he mused. Pulling the strange spear to him, he ran his fingers along the black shaft. A line of some strange cursive script ran its length, bracketed by a pair of birds inlaid in metal even darker than the wood. Ravens, Kuai Liang imagined. Just like Scourge. Another pair was engraved on the blade.

Erron looked to the Cryomancer. "Gave my guns and my sword to your girl," he explained. "This ain't my weapon of choice, but it'll do for now, 'til I catch up with her and get my stuff back."

Kuai Liang sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. The blood, sand, and sweat in his beard were beginning to stiffen it into uncomfortable spikes on his face. "If I help you, do you think you can you walk?"

Erron nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Like I told that ornery girl, I heal quickly. I'm already doing better than I was a few hours ago when they strung me up."

The Grandmaster skeptically looked him up and down. "I'd hate to see the 'before' picture," he finally concluded as he helped the man sit up. "You look like hell."

The gunslinger chortled. "I feel like it," he said, watching his ally rise to his feet. A moment later, when Kuai Liang threaded his arm underneath Erron's good shoulder, the outlaw fought to his feet. With the Cryomancer's help on one side, and the spear bracing him like a crutch on the other, Erron was then able to limp towards the empty beach.

"I just killed an Edenian," Kuai Liang told him. "Probably a guard, I'm guessing. Do you know if there are others around?"

The gunslinger cocked his head. "I doubt it. He was probably ordered to send word to that rat bastard, Reiko, if anyone came along." He glanced up at him. "Did you see a big, asshole raven?"

"No," he admitted as they emerged from the trees and onto the sandy beach. "But that doesn't mean anything. He could have sent Scourge before he attacked me."

Erron snickered lightly. "So, you know the buzzard's name, huh? What else do you know?"

"Reiko wants Kenshi to hand over the location to Shinnok's amulet, and if he doesn't do it, Reiko is going to kill Olivia and Takeda." By that point, they had hobbled to a piece of petrified driftwood, and Kuai Liang lowered Erron onto it slowly. Then, after filling up his canteen with water, he joined his side and handed it to him, letting him drink his fill.

"I just heard all of that myself," the gunslinger told him, panting from drinking so much water so fast. His voice was still hoarse, but already starting to sound better. "Reiko tried to get me to come around to his way of thinking. When I declined his offer, he tried to kill me."

"Tarkatans are inept and stupid," Kuai Liang began, "but they're still deadly. You're lucky they didn't kill you."

"Wasn't for their lack of trying," he said. "Besides, it wasn't luck that saved me. It was Shang Tsung's spell, I reckon. It has a way of keeping me alive when I ain't got no right."

Neither said anything for a few minutes after that as the Cryomancer reflected upon everything Erron had told him. He absorbed the information like a sponge, and added it to his repository of knowledge surrounding his present problem. Olivia was in grave danger, he knew. So he had to get moving, and soon. But for the moment, he allowed himself some much-needed rest as well as time to freeze the throbbing stab wound in his back. Still, his thoughts were on his daughter.

"How is Olivia?" he muttered softly. "Is she okay?"

Erron started at the sudden break in silence, but then looked at him. "Guess so," he shrugged. "As best as a young'in like her can be after all she's gone through." He began to fiddle with his bootlace, tightening up the strings.

"What do you mean, 'all she's gone through'?" he demanded to know, wondering what all had happened to her besides her encounter with the Strega.

"We've just had a very long week is all," the gunslinger tiredly replied. "She got hurt when we got caught in the middle of a siege on Toluca, and there weren't much she could do about it since Reiko slapped a cobalt collar around her neck." As soon as he said it, Kuai Liang perceptibly tensed, and his hands involuntarily flexed into fists. Erron recognized it right away and held up his hands to him to calm him down. "She's okay, man. A Tarkatan stabbed her arm is all," he explained. "That stubborn kid wouldn't let me look at it. Kept insisting she was fine until it and that collar finally took their toll on her and she half-fainted. But I bandaged it up for her with some nopal and she started to get better."

The Cryomancer breathed a sigh of relief at the news, but still remained stiff. "She had no place being in a battle. Not yet."

Erron scoffed. "I agree," he said. "She's awful green. Got a lot to learn. But we were ambushed right outside of Toluca. Didn't exactly have a choice. It was either fight our way out or die. Or worse, get taken prisoner by Reiko."

Kuai Liang felt the first pangs of a headache prickling at the edges of his scalp. He sighed as he leaned forward and folded his hands together, pressing his knuckles to his mouth. "Did she at least fight well?" he wanted to know, hoping that she'd remembered her training.

The gunslinger shrugged. "She was as scared as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs," he said. "But she saved Takeda's life."

He nodded, pleased. "I wouldn't think she'd have much trouble taking down Tarkatans-"

"It weren't no Tarkatan," Erron interrupted him. "She killed a Tolucan to save him. An Edenian. Bashed his brains in with a tree branch." He took another swig of water, and then scowled. "Man, I wish this was tequila," he muttered.

Kuai Liang's eyes widened in horror, not really hearing him gripe about the lack of alcohol. Olivia – his little Livy – had gotten her first kill. He didn't count the Tarkatans she'd battled against in the Shirai Ryu Temple; they were monsters, barely above the most brutish of animals. The only good one was a dead one. But an Edenian, someone very similar to a human? That was different. And he was sad for her loss of innocence, which had come far too soon. "How…how was she after…" he trailed off. "Was she okay?" he stammered.

"How'd you fare when you killed your first?" Erron pointedly remarked.

The Grandmaster nodded his understanding, and then looked at his hands in silence. Throughout the years, killing _had_ become easier. Rather, it became easier to stomach, to banish the sense of guilt, to forget the crime altogether. But his first? He'd never forget that man he'd killed while he was undergoing his Rite of Ascension, that Shaolin monk who had information he needed. After he'd forced the monk to reveal Kung Lao's whereabouts, he'd froze the man into an icy statue so he couldn't warn the others. It was funny – perhaps tragic – how he'd always neglected to mention that part of the story to his children when they asked him to describe his test. He'd been too ashamed of his actions because he knew, deep down, that there was no real reason for the monk to die. And sometimes, even now, over twenty years later, he came face to face with his ghost in the dark corners of the Temple, or had nightmares of the monk getting his revenge.

Suddenly, the wind around them began to swirl in a tightening, howling circle. Giant pieces of hail began to fall from the sunny sky, pelting the two men so hard that welts instantly blossomed on their sunburned skin. Kuai Liang pulled Erron to the sand with him and then used the petrified branch as a shield to ward off the ice, which was now shredding the leaves on trees. Ragged bits of green confetti rained to the ground. Soon, the wind sucked up enough sand and water to reveal the shape and size of the screeching funnel. From the Cryomancer's vantage point, it towered towards the sky, gyrating in a tighter and tighter dance until it whipped around like a ribbon. Furiously, it ripped the wood from his hands and chucked it several yards away. And then, just as powerful arms began to pull on the two warriors, dragging them towards it, the tornado suddenly dissipated, revealing Fujin and the other Earthrealm Champions within.

"Fujin?" Kuai Liang muttered in confusion. Beside him, Erron calmly blew a lock of his sand-soaked hair out of his eyes.

"Oh, look, I found him," Tomas declared, stepping forward. He instantly crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.

The Grandmaster ignored him, though, and stared at Anya, who had clearly snapped out of her funk like the Wind God had predicted. Currently, she was scowling at him, her eyes like blazing amethysts, and her arms were crossed as well. Fire bloomed through her cheeks, searing them red. Yes, she was definitely back to normal.

"Anya," he breathed as he scrambled to his feet and staggered to her. "You're okay." He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, wincing as he noticed how she didn't reciprocate.

"Yeah, I'm okay," she growled, pulling away. "No thanks to you." She glared up at him, and then without another word, she slapped him as hard as she could.

Now Kuai Liang snarled at her. " _Stop_ hitting me!" he shouted as his cheek stung. "I don't hit you. So _don't_ hit me."

"I woke up and found that you'd run off into the desert on your own!" she shouted.

"That is no reason-"

"You ran off without any guide, without any help, into a desert that Fujin and Kailyn said is really dangerous, and you could have died and we'd have no idea where you were," she continued, though her angry face was beginning to crumble. "You left us, Kuai Liang, all by ourselves. And you left me." Her voice cracked. "You _left_ me." She looked up at him as tears formed on her eyes. "How could you leave me?" she asked as she started to cry.

He immediately pulled her back to him and whispered into her ear, "I was trying to get to Olivia. She was in danger, and she couldn't afford to wait any longer. I didn't leave you. I was trying to bring her back to you. To _us_."

"And what if you'd gotten yourself killed?" she countered, her voice muffled by his shoulder. "Then I'd have lost her _and_ you. Losing her has been bad enough. I don't think I could take it if you…" She trailed off.

Kuai Liang nodded and stroked her hair. "Don't worry, Ahn. You're stuck with me for quite a long time." He softly laughed at his own joke and then kissed her temple. "But I'm glad to know you don't completely hate me. That some part of you still likes having me around."

Anya pulled away, her eyes damp and red, and then looked at Erron. Immediately, her distraught expression vanished, curling into the expression of the determined nurse. "Oh, Erron, let me help you," she said as she knelt beside him in the sand.

"Your kid tried already," he said. "She found out there's not much help for a guy like me."

"Well, she did a good job cleaning you up," the Hydromancer faintly smiled. "But I can finish the job for her." With that, she cupped his stubbly cheeks in her hands and began to heal him.

Meanwhile, Kuai Liang looked at the others, who didn't seem particularly happy with him, if their expressions were any indication. "Fujin, how did you find me-" he began, but was abruptly interrupted.

"Cousin, you are a gigantic fool," the Wind God snapped. "You're as impulsive as always. There was a reason I didn't teleport earlier. You may or may not remember that my powers are _limited_ in Outworld."

"Yes, I remember," he answered tersely as the other Champions dispersed.

"Then you remember that teleporting requires an enormous amount of my energy here," he hissed. "I did not do it earlier because I had no idea where to travel to. It would be a tremendous waste of my powers. I preferred to save that power for whatever fight may come between Reiko and us, and to save your daughter, if need be. Was it the slower way? Yes. But it was also the more pragmatic, if you looked at things in the long-term."

"So you suddenly decide to teleport?" the Cryomancer retorted. "Why? You didn't have to."

"Yes, I did," the other replied. "Because you ran off like a maniac, determined to fight Reiko on your own. It was a noble gesture, but a stupid one! You jeopardized everything we've planned, and would've made it that much easier for him to take back Olivia and Takeda. He _cannot_ get his hands on them again, do you hear me? I will kill them both myself before I allow Reiko to return my father to this universe. You have no idea the darkness Shinnok will bring should he rise again."

"You will _not_ harm my child," Kuai Liang snarled, bristling at the threat. "I'll stop you."

"I would prefer it didn't come to that, Cousin," he retorted. "It would be a waste of your life."

The Grandmaster scoffed at that. "Bi-Han defeated you _without_ the Dragon Medallion," he shot back. "I think I'd have no trouble."

Fujin blinked at that, frowning. "What's happened to you, Cousin?" he demanded to know. "You're not the man I grew to respect and care for."

"My daughter was taken from me," he replied. " _That's_ what happened to me."

He began to storm off towards the lake to clean up, but Fujin called after him, "I would rather we work on the same side, Cousin." The Cryomancer stopped and looked at him. "I need your help to stop Reiko from unleashing Armageddon on the Realms, and you need my help to save Olivia." Kuai Liang stared at him for a long moment, but then grunted and wordlessly resumed his trek towards the water.

* * *

When most inhabitants of the many Realms, the myriad examples of sentience that had arisen across a thousand domains, spoke of "Creation," they thought primarily of the Empyrean, a lush paradise full of water and color. Thriving places of life and light, they sported humans and Old Ones, sorcerers and kings, and animals in infinite variety. Broad enough, varied enough, for any race and every purpose. Yet bucolic landscapes were _not_ the full extent of Creation, even though its many inhabitants might wish it were.

Beyond the divide lay wholly half of existence, a dark and twisted mirror of the Empyrean and all its wonders. For every Heaven, a Hell. For every vibrant Edenia, a Netherrealm, the dominion of monsters and the Lord of Darkness, Shinnok. For Eden, the peculiar – almost nightmarish – semi-reality of Purgatory. And for the many worlds of the Old Ones, in the deepest metaphysical bowels of Outworld, among the very roots of the Realm, cradled below even the coldest pits of the Bīnglěng Di Dìyù…

The Red Desert.

The Sea of Despair had few, if any, to call its own. It was, rather, a graveyard to those who'd challenged Shao Kahn, and Onaga before him; the final resting place of any insurgent well and truly butchered. Yet, the desert was not without _some_ native life. Like any cemetery, it attracted vermin, scavengers, and predators: things that fed and thrived on the decay of dead things. Some dwelled underground, but there were ghosts there; most made their homes in the dead and desiccated creatures that made the desert their final place of rest. And because the desert had few rules of its own, and it corrupted and changed those creatures that it claimed, each of those native animals obeyed vastly different laws of nature from any other.

Some were merely grotesque and violent, like the demons or the topography of Netherrealm turned loose from their domain. Others were…worse. And this particular region of desert was worse.

The air, already hazy with an unidentifiably noxious fume, roiled and thickened before finally parting, almost sullenly, for Reiko's magic. Skarlet gradually kept pace with him, and behind her the army, a process far more difficult for any of them than it had ever been in places beyond the Red Desert. The General trudged rigidly, leaning slightly forward as if confronting a fearsome headwind. Of Scourge, there was no sign at all. That came as no surprise to him; he'd left his pet with Markus at the oasis to spy on whatever newcomers happened to come that way.

"This…this is…" Skarlet was clearly taken aback. Reiko, who had thought himself prepared, found himself nearly as disconcerted.

He had seen dead lands in his time; he had, in fact, helped Shao Kahn make more than a few of them. He had seen Realms burned to cinders and scoured of life, such as the one in which he was born; worlds blasted and blackened, barren echoes of Shinnok's fiery domain; places of glistening ice and places of sterile stone.

Never before had Reiko seen a place… _infected_.

A gritty, almost scabby crust cracked and shifted beneath his feet, exuding a clear, vaguely sour fluid with each step. Scattered pits were literal gaping sores in the landscape, radiating a feverish warmth, wreathed in rot. The hills, of which several were visible before the cloudy air obscured the distance, were fleshy, bulbous – tumorous rather than geological, growing and shrinking in starts even as the General and his army watched.

The wind, though placid and weak, moaned with the voice of an old man dying, and Reiko had finally identified the tang of the putrid air. Gangrene, bile, and the eye-watering breath of a mouth full of rotting teeth.

"It has been long since I've been here," he muttered bitterly to his lieutenant. "Welcome to the site of one of my father's greatest victories. Welcome to the home of the Ursineans."

"I don't understand," Skarlet said. "Even at his worst, Shao Kahn never did _this_."

Reiko scoffed. "Oh, but he did." He knelt to examine the sickly earth – not so much because he expected to learn anything as because he felt like he _should_. "He didn't just slaughter them, he _corrupted_ them. He used his army to murder the Ursineans, yes, and then he compounded his sin by warping them into something they were never meant to be, something Creation was never meant to contain. He planted all the seeds of all this – or first cultivated the pestilence, if you prefer that metaphor. It was here, waiting, and eventually, the ghosts of the Red Desert helped it to bloom. It will probably spread to all of Outworld eventually. But perhaps I can undo what he did."

"Enough of this!" she suddenly snapped as she stomped to him, ignoring the faint trickle of puss oozing up from where her boots cracked the surface, and halted less than a pace from her General. "You've always had a morose streak running beneath your bitter sarcasm, but I only have so much patience for it. You've been keeping secrets from me from the start, and it's time you told me why."

"It doesn't matter," he replied. "Not to a construct like you."

"No! You've been keeping your secrets, and I've permitted it, but it ends now!"

Reiko narrowed his eyes at her and rose smoothly from his crouch so that they were face-to-face. "You've _permitted_ it, Skarlet?"

If the younger warrior felt any trepidation at his dangerous tone, she managed to keep it from her expression. "Yes," she declared. "But no more. I need to know what you're hiding."

"No, you don't, _slave_ ," he countered. "Now step back."

"No, my Lord."

"Step. Back."

"No."

Reiko's uppercut did not merely lift Skarlet off her feet, it sent her hurtling up and back with enough force to shatter the ground where she finally fell. A pink-frothed puss puddled in the shallow crater, dirtying her porcelain skin and her crimson clothes. By the time she'd struggled to her feet, her jaw already turning a mottled purple, Reiko had closed the distance between them.

"Am I clear?" he demanded to know.

Skarlet's hand clenched of its own accord, her entire body trembling with rage, but she refused to draw her weapons. To raise her hand to her master was to incur her immediate execution. "No," she defiantly replied.

A second blow, this one to the chest, threw her back farther still. Again, she split the crust of the desert with the impact, and again she staggered upright. This time, when Reiko approached, he held his scythe in his fists. "And now?" he asked. "Consider, before you answer, that I'm done with my fists."

She scowled at him and paused to spit out a mouthful of blood. But finally, she deferred to her master. "Very well," she replied. "But this mission is madness. Your plan to take the Earthrealm children is madness. Your ambition to become a god is madness."

He smirked. "Well, Construct, if it's madness, then who better to show me the way?" he asked. She had no answer for him, so he continued. "Erron Black surely commanded the children to travel across the desert as the crow flies. Therefore, they have to travel through this region to get to Z'Unkarah. They cannot have gotten far. They only had a small head start."

"What is your suggestion then, my Lord?" she asked, her words still full of venom and spite.

"We shall split up," he told her. "You will take a contingent of Tarkatans with you that way." He pointed to the left side of the diseased region. "The Edenians shall go that way." Now he pointed to the right. "And I will take a contingent directly up the middle. We shall all comb through this area as one. We will all approach them like a towering wall so that they cannot hide. And then, they will once again be in my custody."

"Yes, my Lord," she grumbled.

* * *

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, I can't believe you're surprised I did that LOL That's my thing. I'm _always_ killing off characters. But, it would seem as if this time, you were right ;) **

**Westcoast Witchdoctor, oh, I gotcha now. That makes sense. Yeah, the kids will really have to step up now. But deserts have a way of doing that to people.**

 **ROCuevas, I know, right?**

 **Da Hybrid Queen, I'm the Cliffhanger Queen. Just ask Hell-on-Training-Wheels LOL But I like your analysis of Erron's personality. That's a good way to put it. He definitely doesn't care how others perceive him, only how he perceives himself. And betraying his own principles, even for money? That wouldn't have sat well with him.**

 **Esha Napoleon, yup, Erron! LOL**

 **iceangelmkx, yup, he got his hat back, only to abruptly lose it again LOL Because I'm evil like that ;) To answer your question, he knows about eBay, not because he actually uses it (though, wouldn't that be hilarious if he did?) but just in a transitory sort of way. He _has_ gone on missions to Earthrealm in my headcanon, sent by Shang Tsung, so it would stand to reason that he'd hear about the latest technology and stuff. **

**Symphonica666, oh, no apology is necessary. Life happens :) It's very possible that Erron's a better guy than people give him credit for, I totally agree. I also feel like you, that maybe after spending some time with the kids, he kind of likes them even though he gripes about them a lot.**

 **Hell-on-Training-Wheels, it's okay. Like I always say, life happens. Although, some warm peanut butter cookies wouldn't hurt. ;) Thank you for applauding my courage with Erron. You're right; it was the only plausible way to get the kids to escape. They couldn't haul him through the desert like that and _not_ get caught. My readers would likely call bullshit on that. But as you can see, you don't have to be sad anymore. Shang Tsung's spell saves him again ;) But he lost that damn hat again. What _will_ happen with it, seriously? **

**en-lumine, thanks for all the cheeseburgers XD That's a good way to put it with Erron's character. When I was creating his character, I infused a part of myself into him like I do with all my characters, and we're both from the West. And one of the things I really appreciate is people who show, don't tell. I hate people who make me promises or pander to me, and I imagine he's the same way. So he lives his life like I do, by doing what he says and by not blowing smoke up people's asses.**

 **PinkRedRose2, oh, don't cry! Look, I made it all better!**

 **PunkRoseBlitz, oh, no worries. You're fine. Life happens! :) Thank you for your kind praise. Yeah, he's having to grow just like she is. It's rough for him, but he's definitely doing it. And I don't actually play Overwatch, so I'll have to take your word for it with any sayings he might have. But McCree is the cowboy, yeah? I've seen pictures of him on Tumblr.**

 **reptaliator, no, I know you're a guest, that's why it's hard to communicate. I understand if you don't want to write stories for this website, but you could still make a profile to collect your favorite stories and authors. I remember a while back you told me I needed to make it easier for you to find. Well, that's something _you_ could do to make it easier because you'd get an automatic notification through your email anytime your favorite story/author updates. It would definitely make it easier for me and other authors to answer your questions when you have them, and explain to you about any creative decisions you don't understand. It's up to you, but that would probably make everything a lot easier for you and for me. As for your reviews, the sometimes scathing part doesn't bother me really. If Kuai Liang's beard rubs you the wrong way, oh well. We'll have to agree to disagree. That's just how I imagined it after playing MKX, so that's how it'll stay. I mean, I get what you meant about Kenshi being clean shaven, but there's nothing saying they had to grow beards for the game at the same time. I _will_ say that before you brought it up, I'd been entertaining having him get rid of it due to the extreme heat of the desert. But, yeah, I'm not too sure at the moment. **


	24. Grown-Up Decisions

**Author's Note: I just wanted to say that the first person who reviews this is going to be my 200th review on this story. May the odds be ever in your favor. ;) But seriously, thanks to all of you for your tremendous support. It's pretty special when someone gets a a review on their story, let alone 200! Guess I'm doing something right. This is roughly the halfway point of the story, more specifically a little beyond. I hope you enjoy it!**

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"I have to stop," Olivia moaned tiredly as she collapsed onto her knees.

She hardly cared about the thick, sticky puss dampening her legs from the knees down, or the dune that abruptly split open beside her, revealing a large, blood-shot eye. Her attention was on the cobalt collar digging into her neck, sapping her strength. She weakly tugged at it, sick of the damn thing.

"We can't stop," Takeda reprimanded her. "They're right behind us."

He was right, of course. They didn't have much of a head start on Reiko and his minions. Every minute she wasted like this, the greater the odds were that they'd be captured again. Part of her didn't care. Part of her thought she should sacrifice herself so that Takeda could escape. She couldn't keep this pace up forever, not with the damned cobalt collar holding her down. But no, she shook her head, she couldn't give up just yet. Erron hadn't stayed behind and risked his life just for her to give up without a fight. The mere thought of quitting disgraced _his_ sacrifice, and it dishonored the Lin Kuei and her father. So when Takeda thrust his hand towards her, she took it and let him pull her to her feet.

"I can't take this thing anymore," she groaned as they started to trot again, referring to her collar. "We have to get it off."

"Yeah, but how?" he asked her.

She didn't have an immediately apparent answer, so she left it at that.

Long they jogged, ignoring, as best they could, the bizarre horrors of this region of the Red Desert: the cracked and oozing terrain, sinking beneath their feet; the ever-present stench of gangrene; the shifting of the landscape, as veins bulged from beneath the dead soil and boils the size of hills shriveled as they drained. Erron's guns thumped heavy against her thighs, thrust through her waistband, gradually bruising them she imagined. His shotgun and her quiver strap crossed each other in a perfect 'x' over her sternum, and between them and the bow she took in Toluca they were starting to get heavy. Spots now danced in Olivia's vision as she ran, threatening to grow into total darkness that would pull her under. She didn't know how long she could resist the vertigo.

Exhausted but determined, both teenagers stumbled on. Soon, the natural contours of the land herded them down into a hollow that was more like a deep cut through human flesh than a gully. The walls were firm but not hard, and dribbling serous fluid over deep red stone. The scorching sun meandered through the sky behind a few lazy, thin clouds as well as tall, mottled escarpments, giving them a brief respite from the heat. Olivia was reasonably certain that they were hidden from sight in this narrow gully, so when she finally slowed to a walk to catch her breath, Takeda didn't argue with her or make her run again.

The Cryomancer traced the contours of the tiny lock at the seam of her collar. If only they had some sort of tools to pick it. But alas, this required precision and all they had were blunt instruments. "What if I started cutting a groove into the metal with a knife?" she asked again as she now leaned against the wall and squatted to take a break.

Takeda shrugged and then sank down the wall beside her. "Maybe," he said. "But cobalt is a pretty tough metal after it's been refined. That's why I didn't suggest it before." He reached behind her and grabbed one of her arrows from the quiver she took from the battlefield at Toluca. Silently, he broke off the metal arrowhead and handed it to her. "I guess it's worth a try."

Olivia immediately gripped the collar to steady it. Then, careful not to slip, she dragged the arrowhead along the smooth metal as if it was a file and she was trying to saw her way out of a jail. After a few strokes, she stopped to let Takeda look at the damage she had done. He peered closely at the collar, squinting. Then he sighed and looked at her sadly.

"You barely scratched it, Olivia," he said.

"Dammit," she whined. Defeated, she threw the arrowhead at the ground. It plunged into the soft ground, and blood-tinged puss erupted around it. Then her face collapsed onto her hands and she started to cry.

"Hey," Takeda gently started. He reached over and touched her shoulder. "It's going to be okay. We'll keep working at it every time we take a break. It might take us a while, but we're going to get it off of you."

"You should just leave me," she whimpered. "I'm just slowing you down. And I'm not even the one Reiko wants. It's you."

"Well, that might be true, but I'm not leaving you behind," he argued.

"Don't you get it?" she cried, now looking at him with her tear-stained face. "Without my powers, I'm no use to you. I'm just a hindrance."

Takeda scoffed at that. "Surely, you know how to do more than just freeze stuff," he said. "I know you know how to fight without your powers. You've given me enough bloody noses since I've met you, so I ought to know."

Olivia sniffed and looked at him hopefully. "I guess so," she conceded. She didn't like how small her voice sounded to her own ears.

"And I heard you tell Erron that you know how to use his guns," he continued. "You told us that your boyfriend taught you how."

"I'm not nearly as good with them as Alex is," she countered.

"You're better than I am," he replied. "I don't know how to use them at all. And I don't think we have much time for you to teach me how. So without you, these guns don't mean that much to me."

"I guess," she said, parroting herself from only moments prior.

"And your mom's a nurse, right?" he asked.

"Yeah," she nodded. "So?"

"So, she taught you how to bandage people up," he said. "At least, that's what it looked like to me when you were taking care of Erron. I personally feel a lot better knowing that someone trained in first aid is with me in case I get hurt."

Olivia nodded. "I suppose you're right." Now she looked away. "But I'd be so much more useful to you if I was at full strength and able to use my powers. I don't feel like me without them."

"Maybe not," he agreed before he took her hand in his, patting it. "But if there's one thing I've learned about you since I've known you, it's that you are more than just your powers."

She faintly smiled. "Thanks. And thanks for the pep-talk." She shakily exhaled and then wiped her face dry. "I'm sorry. I'm not usually like this. I'm pretty sure my dad would kill me if he knew I just had a minor meltdown over something as stupid as a cobalt collar."

Takeda stood again and offered a hand to Olivia, lifting her to her feet. "Is he really that bad?" he asked.

Olivia shrugged. "Well, no," she grudgingly admitted. "He just…pushes and pushes and pushes, and he never ever stops. And he never lets me quit, no matter how much I want to. And he never listens to me either. I can never make him happy. And the worst part is that I can't even figure out what he wants from me. Half the time, he treats me like this little, helpless baby who can't fend for herself no matter what. And then the other half of the time, it's like he expects me to be more of an adult than I am." She looked at Takeda as they walked through the narrow ravine. "Like, one time, my friend Morgan got a little too rough with me during sparring practice, and she accidentally broke my arm when she took me to the mat. I mean, the bone was sticking out and everything."

"Ow," he cringed.

"Yeah, ow," she growled. "I started to cry. I mean, I was only ten or so. It hurt so much and I was scared when I saw the bone sticking out." She swallowed, now tensing with remembered fury. "But you know what my dad said? He said, 'Pain is the mark of a weak mind, Livy.'"

"Sounds like something Grandmaster Hasashi would say," Takeda muttered.

"Maybe," she agreed. "He's more stern than my dad is, but not by much." She paused, thinking about her father. Her strict, overbearing father. How he drove her insane! Her mother had often told her that he behaved that way just because he cared about her, and like a typical child, she refused to believe it. Even now, as she walked through this crusty, oozing chasm beneath a blazing, Outworld sun, she couldn't believe it. But God, she'd give anything and do anything just to see him again, even for just a moment.

"At least you have a father, I guess," Takeda said, breaking through her thoughts. "I only got to spend a few days with mine before he dumped me off on the Shirai Ryu."

"Consider yourself lucky," she scoffed, though inwardly, she didn't mean a word of it. "You don't have anyone holding you back and stopping you when you want to do something."

"Hello, have you even met Grandmaster Hasashi?" he retorted with a scowl. "He is just as hard on me as your father is on you. Maybe even worse because I'm not his own flesh and blood."

"My dad is harder on me _because_ I'm his own flesh and blood," she said. "He treats everyone else a lot differently than he treats me. Even my brothers and sister. You know why? Because I'm the only Cryomancer in the Temple besides him. So it's like he expects me to be just like him."

"If anyone pushed me to be just like _my_ father, I'd punch them," he bitterly muttered.

"Well, your father isn't around to push you to be like him," she reminded.

"True," he admitted and then cast Olivia a wayward glance. "He came and took me, you know," he said. "When I was little. He said my mom was dead and he just…took me. I didn't even know him." He paused for a long moment. "Half the time, I think he's not even my real father, you know? Just some stranger who kidnapped me and lied about my mom being dead so that I'd stop asking questions."

"But you can…you _seem_ to be able to…" Olivia trailed off, not knowing how to say he seemed telepathic just like Kenshi without pissing him off.

"Don't say it," he hissed, angrily pointing his finger at her.

"I'm just saying," she shrugged.

"Yeah, well, we don't actually know what I did, if anything," he argued. "There is probably a very logical explanation for what happened with the Strega."

Olivia had no chance to say what she intended to because at that moment, two Tarkatans rushed to the edge of the gully, howling and waving their arm blades. Shouts in the distance heralded even more.

"Run!" Takeda yelled at her.

He immediately grabbed Olivia by the hand and yanked her along while the two monsters jumped in after them. The Cryomancer stumbled, and then a sharp blade chopped into the scabby rock just above her head. Clawed hands caught her by her hair, and a bat-faced Tarkatan lifted her off the ground, its mouth snarling and drooling. Behind them, Takeda managed to curl his whips in his hands and swing. His weapon sliced cleanly through the vicious warrior's neck, silencing its scream before it ever escaped his lungs. Headless, the creature dropped, and with him dropped Olivia, but more came, and then he hacked through several of them before they both raced away.

Bedlam ensued after that. The enemy warriors swarmed through the gully, their arm blades flailing. Both Olivia and Takeda scrambled away as fast as they could, shouting, fighting off the attacking Tarkatans. Takeda's whips snapped at the beasts like cobras striking. Beside him Olivia had grabbed her bow and began firing arrows at the monsters, though it hurt her still-healing elbow with every twang of the catgut string. She would save Erron's precious bullets until she was completely desperate. The noise would undoubtedly attract more of these monsters to them. Quickly, Takeda scurried up the gully wall, and he pulled the Cryomancer along with him.

At the top, before they could run very far, something hard slammed into Olivia's back, smashing her across the ground face-first. Her bow flew over the edge of the arroyo as she fell, dull fire now searing her muscles as arrows spilled onto the ground from her quiver. Blood pooled around her and soaked her back, but she didn't think it was hers. With a startled and pained yelp, Takeda flew to the ground nearby her, his hands frantically trying to brush his back. Open-mouthed, gasping for air that refused to come, his body moving in a painfully slow fashion. Pitifully, he writhed like a slug sprinkled with salt as blood pooled around him as well. Olivia looked over her shoulder. Standing over them was Skarlet with a large globe of vermillion blood floating above her hand. Suddenly, the Cryomancer understood that she and Takeda had both been hit with…a _blood_ bomb.

"That can't be sanitary," Takeda grumbled when he came to same realization.

"You will come with me, you impudent brats," she hissed in her raspy voice.

And then Olivia, infuriated, who had gotten to her feet by this point, quickly drew Erron's gun and fired. The construct didn't expect the shot to her hand, and she tumbled to the side with a cry of surprise. Takeda, wasting no time, promptly snapped her with the very end of his whips, driving her even further backwards. She collapsed completely onto the ground now, so Olivia jumped onto her back, wrapping her thin arms around her swan-like neck and straining to choke her.

The two young warriors shouted in determination as one, but then Skarlet stood, undeterred by Olivia's weight, and she staggered dangerously close to the rim of the gully. The crusty rim collapsed beneath her boot heel, and they both toppled down. When they landed, the Cryomancer yelped as she slammed into the ground, losing her breath. Dull bolts of lightning surged through her lungs, and she croaked for air that would not come. But Skarlet took no pity on her; unscathed from the fall, she immediately jumped to her feet, grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, and threw her headfirst into the wall.

Olivia had trouble lifting her head after she slammed into the wall, and she had been stunned too much by the blow to resist the construct when she buried her fingers into her hair, digging into her scalp with long fingernails, jerking her head back, before she punched her in the nose. Blinding hot tears burst from Olivia's eyes as she weakly fumbled to grip her hand, and thick blood exploded from her nostrils.

And then Takeda's whips snapped at Skarlet close enough to get her attention, but far enough to avoid accidentally hurting the Cryomancer. Reiko's minion promptly dropped Olivia into a puddle of puss and serous fluid, growled in annoyance, withdrew one of her knives, and turned to face Takeda. Her severe features took on an even harsher appearance, and she marched towards her enemy with her long knife poised to strike.

As she approached, he cracked those razor whips again, this time with less caution. He swung them at her gracefully, his movement so fluid and fast that they seemed like a continuous arc, but she calmly flipped over them and booted him in his clavicle with both feet. As Skarlet used the momentum to leap into a backwards hand spring, coming up in a fighting stance, Takeda stumbled to the side and dropped his weapons. Then Skarlet threw another blood bomb at him, knocking him onto his face.

By then, Olivia had recovered just enough to fire Erron's guns again. The bullets missed her target; her hands were shaking from fear and pain. Skarlet angrily whirled around, broke into a charge, and lunged at her with a shout. The Cryomancer quickly tried to move from her path, but she was too slow for the construct, and she leapt into the air and onto her back. Olivia squealed as she twisted her arm behind her and shoved her face first against the wall in much the same way a policeman would to a suspect.

Takeda had already shaken off the blood bomb and was dashing to help his classmate. As soon as he was in range, he threw a right hook towards Skarlet's back, but she anticipated the shot, yanked Olivia around like a shield, and let her absorb the blow. The boy's punch found her face and crunched into it. As dark stars swirled through her eyesight and blood gushed through her mouth, the Cryomancer vaguely imagined that he had unhinged her jaw, and she stumbled into the wall once more.

Now Skarlet and Takeda traded blows and kicks in a flurry of motion that Olivia, loopy and weakened, found difficult to follow. It was hard to tell who was winning, but from her vantage point on the ground, she thought it might be a draw. Both warriors were fast, graceful, and deadly, but fought at a stalemate for several seconds, a much improved rematch of their fight in the Shirai Ryu Temple. Finally, Takeda left his crotch unguarded and Skarlet capitalized on the mistake. With a ferocious scream, she snap-kicked him between the legs and then laughed triumphantly as he collapsed to the mud with an agonized groan.

But she wasn't content to leave it at that. As he held his groin and moaned in pain, she stepped towards him, gripped his skull with her hands, and then promptly kneed him in the face. A sickening crunch accompanied the shot, and more of his blood sprayed into the air. And _still_ she wasn't done. She snap-kicked him, also in the face, and watched as the force of it knocked him into the oozing wall.

"You're both lucky that Lord Reiko has ordered me to bring you in alive," she rasped, panting. Her voice was angry and cruel. She looked at the Tarkatan horde that was standing back, waiting for her orders. "Take them," she barked at them.

Within seconds, two Tarkatans yanked Olivia to her feet by the hair. She squealed at the pain and reached for their hands to pry them off, but one of the warriors snatched a hand and forced it down while a third fastened a manacle to her wrists. More cobalt. Dizziness swirled through her head and she immediately began to crumble like a rag doll as it sapped her strength. The Tarkatans wouldn't let her fall to her knees, though. Instead, they threaded their muscular arms beneath hers and propped her up, and then dragged her along. The spikes that naturally protruded from their bodies bit into her skin uncomfortably, but she scarcely noticed as her head drooped tiredly towards the ground.

Takeda's treatment was rougher. They had secured him with manacles and leg irons, and had hit him with the haft of a spear to force him to move, toppling him to the ground. But even as he struggled back to his feet, he was defiant, shrugging them off and resisting.

"Olivia?" he called, but to her, his voice sounded as if she were underwater. She tried to look at him, but her eyelids were just too heavy, and her head was just too heavy, and she just wanted to go to sleep. "What did you do to her?" she vaguely heard him cry.

And now Skarlet's voice answered her. "Lord Reiko thought that cobalt cuffs would be a better fit for her wrists," she hissed dangerously.

"Look at how pale she is!" he argued.

"I'm okay," Olivia managed to croak as the Tarkatan horde dragged the prisoners back the way they came. "I'll be okay."

She wasn't sure how long they marched, but soon they came to a gathering of noise where Edenians set up camp as they celebrated their Lord Reiko's successful recovery of the children. Tents were half erected and men and Tarkatans alike bustled around like busy bees. But Skarlet and her Tarkatans went directly to the only tent that was fully erect, and outside of it, with his hands clasped behind his back and a smirk on his face, stood Lord Reiko.

"Very good, Skarlet," he praised when they stopped immediately before him. He sauntered to Olivia and examined her battered face. He thoughtfully cupped her chin in his hand and then moved her face to and fro as if he was inspecting a horse. Then he glanced at Takeda and saw the bruises on his as well. "I appreciate you bringing them back to me unharmed. Mostly."

"My Lord," she politely bowed her head.

"Bring her," he ordered the construct.

"But-" Skarlet began to argue.

"You damaged them," he interrupted as green fire sparked in his eyes. "I swore to their parents that they would not be harmed. I cannot have you making a liar out of me. So _bring her_." His voice was dark and dangerous. Skarlet hesitated for a moment, but then nodded her obedience and scurried off to find whoever it was that he'd summoned.

And now Reiko tsked at them both. "I warned you not to go into the desert alone," he opened. He addressed them both, but he still cupped Olivia's chin in his hands, and she tiredly looked at him as he spoke. "You're very lucky that I found you when I did. The very worst of this desert was yet to come. Or didn't your friend, Erron Black, tell you that?"

"We would have made it," Takeda hissed.

"Perhaps," he acknowledged as he glanced at him. "Fortune favors the foolish more often than not." Now he let Olivia go and stepped back, and she drooped once more. "But I believe that the only reason you've made it _this_ far is because of Erron Black's tutelage and guidance." He paused and a wolfish grin spread across his face. "Unfortunately for you, Erron Black is now dead."

"You're lying," Olivia argued, her voice weak and barely above a whisper. She didn't want to believe it, even though she knew she'd left him gravely wounded in the oasis.

"Am I?" he asked before he snapped his fingers at an Edenian attendant, who dashed off to retrieve something just inside his tent. "I killed him myself." The Edenian returned with a bag that he handed to Reiko, who promptly reached in and dug the contents out. "Here's my proof." He held out Erron's tattered hat to show them.

"You bastard," Olivia sniffed as tears sprang to her eyes. A thorn of guilt instantly pierced her heart. She knew she shouldn't have abandoned him. She just _knew_.

"Oh, little one, I'm sorry," Reiko apologized, though his tone was saccharine and largely insincere. "I didn't realize you were so fond of him."

"I wasn't," she argued, fighting to stay conscious. He was rude, crude, and downright heartless. A true mercenary. But, she reminded herself, how heartless could he truly be after all he'd done for her and Takeda? Sure, he was getting paid to save them. But he didn't have to treat her battle wounds with his medicines, or sacrifice himself to fight the Strega, or stay behind in the oasis to give them a fighting chance, or give her his guns to protect them in the wilderness.

"Now who's lying?" Reiko whispered as he leaned in to look at her face.

Olivia couldn't look him in the eyes, and she averted her gaze downward. And that's when she saw it. A key ring dangling from his belt at his side. Most of the keys were large and clunky and worn. But one of them stood out to her. It was much smaller, and made of brightly polished cobalt exactly like the collar that encircled her neck. For reasons she couldn't begin to comprehend, she was certain it was the key that could unlock the collar and restore her powers. A nagging shred of hope began to burn in her heart. She _had_ to have that key. But how?

"Please," Takeda began, drawing the General's attention. "Let Olivia go home to her family. You said it yourself, you only need me. She doesn't have to be here. If you let her go, I won't try to escape again. I give you my word as a man and as a warrior."

Reiko chuckled at that and walked to him. "How very noble of you, young Takeda," he genuinely praised the boy. "But it changes nothing. I've told you before that keeping her creates added leverage over Kenshi, your father. So she stays."

Now he took a step back and looked at them both. "What I don't understand is why you're both so anxious to return home to your fathers." He looked to Takeda. "You don't even _know_ your father."

"Grandmaster Hasashi is more of a father to me than Kenshi ever was," he defiantly responded.

"That's who I was referring to," Reiko shot back, a deadly smile creeping over his face. "Tell me, what all do you _actually_ know about Scorpion?" Takeda looked at him, astonished, but refused to answer. With a knowing smirk, he continued. "I know that you love him as one does their father, much as I loved Shao Kahn. But tell me, Takeda, how certain are you that he loves _you_ as a son? Perhaps you overestimate your worth to him."

"I know he cares about me," he said in the smallest voice Olivia had ever heard him speak in. "I'm like a son to him."

Reiko sneered. "No, Takeda, you're not. You are merely his student. He has no love left in his heart for anyone. That was an unfortunate side effect of the brutal deaths of his wife and _true_ son, I'm afraid. The hole their absence left in his heart is so large that it can never be filled by anyone. Quan Chi does astonishing work in that regards. He never leaves a soul intact. Never."

Now Takeda's face fell, and he looked to his feet in clear sadness, prompting Olivia to speak up. "Leave him alone," she snarled, though her head swam as she did. "Grandmaster Hasashi is all he has."

Reiko returned his attention to her. "And you, little one," he said, now stalking to her. "Why are _you_ so anxious to return to _your_ father? He discarded you like an old pair of shoes. He sent you away. He's the reason you're here to begin with. I had no interest in you, only Takeda. Had you not been at the Shirai Ryu when I led the assault on it, you would still be safe in Earthrealm rather than here in Outworld and the Red Desert, where danger lurks around every corner."

It was like a slap in the face, but she saw it for what it was. A cheap and dirty attempt at breaking her will so that she wouldn't try to escape again. But maybe, just maybe, she could manipulate him back. A thought occurred to her. It was terrible, very terrible. But if it worked, she'd find a way to get the collar off of her and regain her powers, and if she got her powers back, she could use them to get her and Takeda out of this mess. That goal was paramount. Suddenly, she knew what she had to do. She just hoped her father and Alex never found out about it.

So as Reiko gazed at her, waiting to coax out an answer, Olivia forced herself to burst into tears, and she stood there and cried for a long moment before she hopelessly looked up to him. "I just wanted him to treat me like an adult," she whined in despair. "I just wanted to undergo the Rite of Ascension to prove to the Temple, to _him_ , that I'm a good warrior. I'm not a little girl anymore."

"No, you're not," the General agreed. He stepped to her and tenderly wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"But he sent me away," she sniffled, pulling away. "My only crime was growing up. My father…he doesn't know everything."

Reiko curled his finger around her chin and pulled her face up to look at him. He said, "When a child first catches her father out – when it first walks into her head that he does not always have divine intelligence, that his judgments are not always wise, his thinking true, his sentences just – her world falls into panic and desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of the gods: they do not fall a little, they crash or shatter or sink deeply into the primordial muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine in the same way as they did before. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing."

Olivia looked at him in surprise. Reiko, for all his insufferable faults, was eloquent and, more importantly, _right_. But all she could do was shrug and say, "I guess."

"You haven't answered my question, Olivia," he said. "Why are you anxious to go back to him?"

She frowned. "I'm not."

"Then let me ask you as an adult, Olivia," he said softly. "What do _you_ want to do?"

She inhaled deeply and gazed at him with her most earnest expression. "I don't want to go home," she lied, praying he wouldn't look inside her soul and see the truth. "I don't care where I go, I just don't want to go home. I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm an adult."

"And you're doing very well as an adult," he smiled. "You're learning quickly. I've been quite impressed with you from the moment I saw you defeat those Tarkatans in the Shirai Ryu Temple. Your behavior in that hallway indicated a mind for strategy. You are young and untested, but I think with further cultivation, you will be a gifted leader someday. Yes, you are doing quite well."

She scoffed at that. "Not really," she grumbled. "I've only done what Erron told me to. I got captured again not even a day after leaving him."

"As any adult would have, Olivia," he silkily replied. "Everyone needs a guide in the Sea of Despair, even the most elderly of travelers. And when you lost yours, it was only a matter of time before you were captured. My father did not make me his most powerful and favored general merely because I am his son. I am a gifted and experienced warrior, and in strategy, I am unparalleled. You are a good warrior in your own right, Olivia, but against me, you were sorely outmatched." He paused and fingered a lock of her dark hair. "You have much to learn. I can teach you more, if that is what you wish. The choice is yours."

"You kidnapped me," she said as she eyed him warily. "You're hardly my friend."

"True," he agreed. "But the universe has a way of bringing two separate people together for reasons we may never fully comprehend. Perhaps it led me to you for this very reason. We may never know. So what do you want, Olivia?"

Olivia inhaled deeply. "I want to be the master of my own fate," she said. It was perhaps the only thing that she'd said thus far that was true. And that was why they were even having this conversation to begin with. "I want that more than anything," she reiterated.

"Olivia, what are you doing?" Takeda demanded to know, the puzzlement in his voice all too apparent.

But both she and Reiko ignored him. The General delicately traced her face with the back of his fingers before he leaned in so close, Olivia half expected him to kiss her cheek. "To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring upon ourselves," he whispered into her ear.

She leaned back and looked at him in genuine astonishment at the implication of his words. "It's awfully presumptuous of you to think that I desire _you_ ," she said, also in a whisper.

"You will," he replied, undaunted and grinning. She scoffed, but she was quite shaken, and she knew he knew it. As he gripped her manacles and unlocked them, she caught herself nervously trembling like a besotted schoolgirl. No doubt he thought it was because she actually wanted him, but in truth, it was because fear of discovery bloomed uncontrollably through her heart.

As the manacles clattered to the ground, her strength immediately began to return. It emboldened her, and she gazed up at him, still shaking. "You're arrogant. Has anyone ever told you that?" she asked.

"I prefer to call it confidence," he smiled. "And I think you enjoy it. I think that you have missed it since you first ran away from me."

"I have not," she protested indignantly.

"You have missed my arrogance as much as I've missed your impudence, little one," he said.

"You're crazy," she hissed, vaguely wondering what she'd gotten herself into. But she held her ground, refusing to shy away. Shying away would show fear, and fear would effectively ruin the effect she was going for. Reiko was a conqueror, she knew, but she suspected he would not conquer her like that without her consent and desire. He would persuade her to submit through the force of seduction, but he would never take her by force like he did in all other areas of his life. She _hoped_ , anyway. Her time with him had been decidedly short, and she prayed that she hadn't misjudged him.

Reiko smiled wolfishly at her as Skarlet now returned with a slender woman dressed in an animal hide dress that fell to her ankles. Her hair cascaded down her back in deep, ruby waves, and tiny braids were woven intermittently through, with shells and beads decorating it. But it was her eyes that drew Olivia's attention. They were the blazing purple that announced her Hydromancer blood. She was one of her Aunt Kailyn's people.

"Heal these two," the General told her as the young Cryomancer gazed at her in surprise. The Hydromancer immediately went to Takeda and laid hands on him. She was a Healer, just like her mother. Olivia looked at him with question marks in her eyes, prompting him to smirk and say, "This is Rowena," he told her. "The Shŭdí of Mòhé, your kinsman, is a shrewd businessman. But in the end, he sold her to me for a reasonable price."

"She's your slave," Olivia accused, disgusted.

"Yes," he replied, unapologetically.

Rowena finished with Takeda quickly, and then came and firmly placed her hands on Olivia's cheeks. Warmth washed over her, like the surf of the ocean on a sunny day, and immediately the wounds on the Cryomancer's face and body began to knit. And as the injuries disappeared, the memories and thoughts and feelings that lingered inside her mind flowed into the Hydromancer. Soon, Olivia's story became hers, and as her heart fluttered with fear in her chest, she silently begged the slave not to tell Reiko what she meant to do.

When she released her, the General swiveled his head back and forth between Olivia and Takeda. Then he said to Skarlet, "Get Olivia cleaned up. She's filthy. And then take her to my tent. We have things we must…discuss." He glanced at the Cryomancer as a licentious blazed exploded in his green eyes. Accordingly, she returned his stare with a faint, but coy, smile.

"And what of the boy?" Skarlet questioned.

"Erect a pole just outside of my tent and chain him to it," he ordered. "And station two Edenians beside him to stand guard over him. I do not wish to have any more surprises."

"Yes, Lord," Skarlet said as she gripped Olivia by the elbow and started to drag her away. Takeda's Tarkatan guard, meanwhile, yanked him in an opposite direction.

"Wait, my Lord," Rowena now said as she stepped forward. Immediately, he held up his hand to stop his Lieutenant, and she halted, digging her gloved fingers into her arm. Olivia immediately tensed but she tried to mask her alarm.

"What is it?" he asked.

She nervously stepped towards him. "As I healed the girl, I saw that she is the granddaughter of my queen, Catja, and of Halsey, the greatest Warrior of the Hydromancer people," she began.

"I know this, Rowena," he impatiently snapped. "What is your point?"

"She is a child of Tlachtga," she answered. "Her family name is well-known to our people. You would do me great honor, my Lord, if you allowed _me_ to bathe her in order to show her the respect accorded to her mighty family." The woman cast the Cryomancer a steely, stern gaze.

Reiko inhaled deeply, clearly thinking about it. Olivia, meanwhile, was stunned by the request. She had been certain that the Hydromancer was about to rat her out. She tried to steady her breathing, and her wildly beating heart, as the General decided whether or not to entertain her request.

At last, though, he looked to the woman and said, "Very well, Rowena. You have always served me well. I will grant your request to reward you."

"My Lord is gracious," she said as she bowed her head.

"Bring her to my tent when you are finished," he commanded.

"Yes, my Lord," she said. Then she took Olivia by the hand and led her away.

* * *

 **MKDemigodZWarrior, to answer your question, I wouldn't bet on it LOL**

 **Da Hybrid Queen, I agree, Skarlet is very close to the end of Reiko's breaking point. I suppose it's a good thing she was successful today, yes? Erron is very lucky that Shang Tsung's magic protected him, but even still, he was damn close to death. But how could he come back from that and be anything _but_ dark and self-deprecating? **

**PinkRedRose2, thank you! And yup, Erron lost his hat but at least you know _where_ it is. And yeah, Skarlet deserves a bit of pity, I'll admit. **

**Esha Napoleon, of course Erron would survive that! He's the only reason people read my story (I think). I think people would be as mad at me if I killed him as if they would if they killed Darryl on _The Walking Dead_. I don't even watch that show, but that's what I've inferred from the interwebs. **

**DarkAssassin15, you're absolutely right on all counts. But I don't think it'll be Scorpion who finally gets to Subby and makes him see what he should've done from the start. It'll be...someone that I can't say because, spoilers LOL But I had actually planned on addressing that in the following chapter.**

 **ROCuevas, I know, right?**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, thanks for the rum! You know, you'd _think_ the Tarkatans could tie a noose right, but then again, they're probably just used to shish-kabobing people on their arm blades. They probably don't have much practice with it. Haha yeah, Subby is pretty badass, so how would it look if he, an Earthrealm Champion and the "One True Dragon King," couldn't easily dispatch one lousy goon? But that's why Jason made it to MKX, and unimportant goon guy didn't. That "call back to Mythologies" was also referring to a chapter in my last story, _The Curse of the Dragon Medallion_ , in which I explored why Fujin lost to Bi-han in the first place. My friend, Obelisk of Light, specially requested it. It was kind of a central theme in Fujin's character in that story. As to your question, Raiden is back in Earthrealm still, protecting it as always. Fujin didn't exactly go and say, "Hey, we're going, come with to help us." Okay, it's a lame reason, but I figured since Raiden was the central god in my first two stories, Fujin could be the central god in these two. I also didn't know that bit of trivia. That's cool, though. I'll have to go check it out. **

**Screaming4orks, I think Reiko's going to get schooled, definitely. And thank you for the well wishes!**

 **Hell-on-Training-Wheels, you and that damn hat LOL Since when is such a reunion ever so easy? If it's indeed Erron's true love, well, by God, I'm gonna make him work for it ;) But I'm glad you're happy he's alive, and I assumed you'd be relieved. Yeah, Subby has more cause to be worried than ever, but he'll start to realize that she's able to take care of herself without him. You know, I get that "meh" reaction a lot about various characters in that people tend to feel meh about someone in the game, but I'm able to make them feel something for them. I got that a lot with Hotaru. It's good to see I still have whatever magic touch it is that lets me do that with Skarlet!**

 **iceangelmkx, but of course! I've never just taken rotten tomatoes. And between you and me, I have one hell of an arm ;) Anyway, I agree that Skarlet is pushing her luck. But I wouldn't bank on her having a change of heart; she _is_ Shao Kahn's creation, after all. Speaking of Kuai Liang's idiotic impulsiveness, I'll be addressing that next chapter. He has to change too, just like Olivia does, and it's high time he started!**

 **Reptaliator, well, I would thank him, but I haven't heard from him in a while. I give him credit for his help but truthfully, I did the majority of the work. He just helped me choreograph certain things in the fights, as in we worked together to list step by step what the character should do in a fight. Then I took his ideas and described them, which was the hardest part to do believably. But when it became increasingly apparent that I could no longer rely on him, I broke away and started doing it completely by myself again like I did when I started writing _Sub-Zero: Origins_. But thanks for about Subby turning into the dragon. That was a gamble that had a so-so response. Well, compared to the way that Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn, Rain, and more treated _their_ underlings, I would have to say that Reiko _is_ nicer to his. But he's also a bad guy, so how nice can he really be to her, especially when she fails him? But the events of this chapter have improved her standing with him, so there's that. **

**Symphonica666, I never thought I'd convince people that Erron's one true love is his hat. If only I would use my powers for good rather than evil! LOL Yeah, Subby's definitely going to be broody about Olivia's loss of innocence, and pray he never finds out what she does to get her powers back! Yeah, he _deserved_ that colossal slap from Anya. He needs some sense knocked into him! So now that you've seen how Olivia and Takeda are faring, what do you think? **


	25. How Livy Saves the Day

**Author's Note: For my American friends, if I don't update again before Thanksgiving next week, I hope you and your family have a lovely day of football and stuffing your face. Because, turkey! :D Just curious...do any of you _not_ do turkey on Turkey Day? In my family, my brother has a nasty allergy to poultry, so we always have to have turkey and ham. That's a lot of meat I don't particularly like. It's so funny, everyone always complains about how much weight they gain over the holidays, but I actually lose weight because I don't really like most Thanksgiving foods. But, what can you do? Anyway, again, Happy Thanksgiving, and go Broncos! 3 **

**Anyway, my 200th review was given to me by DarkAssassin15, so in the words of jacksepticeye, one of my favorite YouTubers, high fives all around! So this chapter is dedicated to her, especially since she was worried about how I'd handle it. I hope you find it tastefully done, my friend :)**

* * *

Rowena led Olivia to a tent not far from Reiko's that had been erected during her conversation with the General. Olivia didn't offer to resist or run as Rowena led her inside. It was cool and dim beneath the heavy fabric, with a small hole cut from the roof around the central pole to let in some light. Miscellaneous herb cuttings hung upside down from the tent frame, drying, perfuming the tent with the smells of sage and lavender. Leather sacks, packed with jars and bottles, lined the tent along the bottom, and a cot had been erected between the door and a small wood stove near the middle.

As she let the door flap close behind her, the Cryomancer saw a line of dusty red light reach out to touch a bathtub on the other side of the tent, reminding her of her plans. She had to get clean for her impending dalliance with Reiko. The very thought nearly brought her to tears, but she had to be strong. This was _her_ decision, she reminded herself, as if it could make her feel better. She had to do this. She had to get her powers back in order to free Takeda and escape, and in order to do that, she had to get the key off of Reiko's clothes. The task, she argued with herself, would be infinitely easier if his clothes weren't actually on his body when she stole them.

Rowena, paying no mind to Olivia's internal struggle, first built a fire in a depression on the floor, laying the logs neatly across it before they burned with small flames. Then she dragged the big copper tub from the far side of the tent, set it on the dwindling fire, and filled it with water that she conjured with her powers. When the bath was steaming, she helped Olivia, who was self-conscious about getting naked in front of a complete stranger, climb into it. Then she too stripped down to her own nakedness and climbed in after her.

Olivia frowned at that, but said nothing. Hydromancers, she knew from discussions with her family as well as her own observations, were not shy about their bodies, and seemed oblivious to the possibility that others might be. As a result, they had no inhibitions. Olivia wondered if Skarlet would have wanted to climb in with her to bathe her had Rowena not intervened when she did, but she quickly dismissed the notion. Skarlet merely would have held her head underwater, she suspected.

"I know what you are planning, Lady," Rowena began as she began scrubbing the Cryomancer's back with a rough sponge and rose-scented soap, breaking through her thoughts. "You are very brave to seduce Lord Reiko to save yourself and your friend, but it will not work."

"Why not?" she demanded to know, taking care to keep her voice low. She didn't want anyone to overhear this conversation.

"I know from experience that Reiko sleeps lightly," she answered. "He will catch you. And then all hope of escape will be lost." She lathered the soap in Olivia's hair and continued. "You will need help. I will help you."

"What do you suggest?" she suspiciously asked as the woman massaged her scalp clean. She closed her eyes. She was exhausted, and a nap sounded wonderful at the moment.

"Before I take you to him, I will blend some herbs and put them in a wine bottle to drink," she said. "He enjoys wine when he enjoys the company of women. My herbs will put him into a deep sleep."

"Then why don't I do that _before_ I sleep with him?" she asked. "Then I don't need to sleep with him at all!"

"They will not affect him that fast," Rowena explained as she used a cup to rinse out Olivia's hair. "They will take nearly an hour to work. And I cannot give the wine bottle to him now because his guards will see me entering his tent without you and they will ask questions. Then he will inspect the wine, discover my treachery, and know that I have been disloyal."

"Well, I can stall him," she said as wet walnut hair tumbled across her eyes. She looked over her shoulder at the Hydromancer, now hopeful.

"No," she shot her down. "When he makes up his mind to lay with you, he will not be delayed for long." She got to her feet and maneuvered in front of Olivia, then sat down before her. Now, she looked her in the eyes as she started scrubbing the dirt from her hands and arms. "You must not drink these herbs yourself, but you cannot turn down the wine when he pours you a cup. If you do, you will draw his suspicion, and he is very smart. Any hesitation on your part will call into question your intentions. So you must put the cup to your lips and pretend to drink."

Olivia nodded. "You've…been with him before?" she cautiously asked, not certain if she should ask her that. She wasn't even certain she wanted to know, but she knew she had to prepare for what to expect. _Know thine enemy_ , she reminded herself, quoting Reiko and an Earthrealm proverb. And if, God forbid, she chickened out at the moment of truth, she wanted to know if he'd force her anyway.

"Of course," she answered. "I am his slave. I am here to do for him whatever he desires."

"Has Skarlet been with him before?" she wondered.

"Perhaps," she shrugged. "But I do not know," she confessed, and Olivia accepted that.

"And what is he like?"

"He is better than any of my former masters," she told her as she cleaned underneath Olivia's fingernails with a brush. She peered very closely at them, almost as if she wanted to seem engrossed in her activity. "But my former masters were very old men, so I am not certain how helpful my opinion is. They frequently had trouble…I had never known satisfaction until Lord Reiko purchased me; that is all I can tell you. The Cryomancers do not believe a woman should. They believe it is for the enjoyment of men only. I grew up believing that too. Now I know better." She looked up. "But you have already known a man," she said. "Why are you worried?"

Olivia swallowed hard. "I just want to know what he'll be like," she said.

The Hydromancer frowned. "He is as he is in every facet of his life: passionate. Beyond that, I do not know what you hope I can tell you."

"Okay," she breathed, still nervous.

"You are scared," Rowena deduced merely by touching her hands and rubbing the soap across them.

"Yes," she confessed, knowing there was no point in lying.

"Tell me," she urged.

Olivia gulped and then looked at her with shame. "I'm afraid I'll mess up and get hurt, or worse, get _Takeda_ hurt, and since he's the key to all of this, that could be very bad for everyone," she said. Rowena said nothing, so she continued. "I don't exactly know what Reiko wants with him, but I know it can't be good. So I have to protect him. And I'm afraid I'll fail. And worse, what will people think if they find out what I did?"

She thought of Alex waiting for her back home, perhaps going out of his mind with worry. He was so trusting of her, so faithful. And just in the last two months, she had broken that trust far too many times, starting with the night at the club when she danced with complete strangers, and culminating now in this. _This_. God, what kind of a girlfriend was she? Deep down, she knew she didn't deserve him.

And her dad? She didn't even want to think about that. If he couldn't handle knowing about her and Alex's legitimate relationship, he _definitely_ wouldn't be able to handle this. He'd want to kill Reiko, but that was the only thing about him that Olivia could get behind. No, the part she feared was the way he'd look at her. He'd pretend she'd never done such a horrible thing, and act like she was a little girl, and exactly the same person she was when she left. But they'd both know the truth. And he'd treat her differently. For her part, she'd never be able to look him in the eye again.

Rowena looked at her sympathetically, but didn't offer to console her. "You have already set these events into motion, and it will be difficult to back down," she reminded her. "He will not force you, but he will not be happy. And he is the most dangerous when he is unhappy."

"I'm not backing down," she said defensively. "But why are you so eager to help me? You don't even know me. You just know my grandmother."

"I will not force you to do anything you do not wish," she continued. "But consider this. Many years ago, the Sorcerer, Shang Tsung, rained fire on Tlachtga in order to kill your infant mother," she said. "It was a completely unfounded attack on our people." She looked at Olivia with incredible urgency. "We lived in peace and we never challenged the Emperor's rule. We were no threat at all to him. But it didn't stop Shao Kahn from sending the Sorcerer to kill us when the Great Betrayer, Rain, turned on our people."

"I know this story," Olivia impatiently snapped. "My Aunt Kailyn caused a landslide in order to help my grandparents cross over into Earthrealm to save my mother's life."

Now Rowena sadly looked down. "That is _one_ story of heroism that day," she said, immediately silencing the Cryomancer. The Hydromancer now leaned back, gripped Olivia's foot, and pulled it out of the water before she started scrubbing it with soap. "But that is not the story I meant. Your grandfather saved a little girl he owed no allegiance to. You see, she had gotten separated from her mother, and was standing in the middle of a glade, crying. She was not his own. And yet, Lord Halsey leapt from his _caballus_ to ward off three Zaterrans that were closing in on her. He singlehandedly killed them, and when he was finished, he lifted her onto his _caballus_ and returned her to her frightened mother. The child was me."

"My grandfather saved you?" she repeated, amazed.

"Indeed," she said. "But in the bedlam of that massacre, my mother was killed and I was taken prisoner by Shang Tsung, who in turn gave me to the Shokan as a reward."

"But I thought Halsey saved you," she said, confused. She wiggled her toes as the Hydromancer unintentionally tickled in between them with the sponge.

"He did," Rowena agreed. "But after he and Catja left Outworld, many of our people were taken prisoner. I was one of them. They sold us into slavery. That is how Shŭdí Tsai Bing, your ancestor, came to own me. I grew into adulthood amongst the Shokan, and they eventually traded me to the Cryomancers in Mòhé, Olivia. I know your father's people better than you. So I know all about making unpalatable choices to survive. I manipulated Tsai Bing. I tempted him with my body in order to curry his favor, and to convince him to sell me to the slave traders that sometimes visited the city with the Cryomancers' blessings."

"And that's how Reiko bought you?"

"Yes," she sadly agreed.

"But I don't understand," Olivia protested. "Why go through all that trouble just to stay a slave?"

"Because nobody leaves Mòhé without the Shŭdí's blessings," she said. "Escape was not possible. Venturing into the frozen wastelands of the Bīnglěng Di Dìyù would mean certain death. But if I was sold to a master who _had_ permission to leave the city, then perhaps I could find a way to escape once I was safely away." She paused to lift Olivia's other foot from the water.

"So why didn't you? You obviously have the means."

Rowena sighed. "Because I needed help. Someone had to drug Reiko while I took care of everyone else. If I tried to escape any other way, I knew I would die. Long have I prayed to the Water Mother to save me from captivity and to guide me home and now, you're here. So I will help you to repay your grandfather for his kindness that day, and then I will escape so that I can return to Tlachtga and whatever of my family is left."

Olivia gulped. Now she really had to go through with her plan to seduce Reiko. After years of suffering in slavery, enduring unspeakable horrors at the hands of her distant kinsfolk, this Hydromancer found a spark of hope to cling to in Olivia, and she was counting on her. She couldn't let this woman down. Her conscience simply wouldn't allow it.

"I'm not going to chicken out," she promised. "I'll set you free. If everything goes well, that is."

"I know," she replied.

Olivia's skin was pink and raw when she finally climbed out of the tub, but it was good to feel clean again. Rowena promptly laid her down to rub delicately perfumed oil into her skin while the exhausted teenager dozed on the cot, far too relaxed from the message, and when she was done she woke her and dressed her in a gauzy, cotton robe that she could almost see through. Then Rowena brushed her hair until it shone like a glossy, brown waterfall, and she pulled half of it into a twisted mess of braids and bun that she fastened to her crown with pins and a comb carved from a large shell. She took care to weave beads and shells into more tiny braids, including a wooden one painted purple. The Cryomancer knew, from conversations with her Aunt Kailyn, that it symbolized uncommon valor in the face of danger. The Tetrach had one, and now her niece did too.

"I haven't done anything brave yet," she protested.

"But you will," Rowena reassured her with a smile.

And then she began to break herbs into a mortar bowl, carefully grinding them with the pestle before adding more. Olivia watched, intrigued. She was certain that the Elder God, Himavat, had shown her mother much of these things whenever she visited Tlachtga. But Rowena's medicines were far different than the ones that Anya used in Earthrealm. Hopefully, they were just as effective. If this Outworld roofie didn't work on Reiko, she will have slept with him for nothing. She shuddered at the thought.

"It will work," Rowena reassured her as she measured some of the potion into a wine bottle that she'd retrieved.

Not long after the Outworld moon had risen, Rowena finally led Olivia, who clutched the corked wine bottle in her hands, to Reiko's tent. He was not inside when she arrived, even though the Hydromancer assured her that he would return soon. She left the bottle of wine on his table between two cups, replacing the half-drank one already there. The Cryomancer then sat alone on his large bed after Rowena left, closing the tent flaps behind her. That, she decided, was going to be the only up-side to this. She'd missed sleeping on an actual mattress. She yawned and stretched out on it, deciding that she wanted to sleep more than anything; she was more tired than she realized. But when her head hit the pillows, she passed out, and faded into a dreamless slumber.

Olivia wasn't quite sure how long she'd slept before a hand stroking her face woke her up, but she still felt exhausted when she woke and saw Reiko kneeling on the edge of the bed beside her. When he was certain he'd woken her, he stood fully upright and began to undress. She said nothing as she watched, and she fought not to look at the key ring that lightly jangled to the floor in a puddle of his clothes.

* * *

Only a few hours had passed since Reiko had first woken Olivia from her nap to take her three times in succession, and he drained the last of her energy from her reserves. She'd been a brilliant actress, though, as she'd convincingly faked her adoration for the man who'd ripped her straight from Earthrealm and dragged her to this red hell. If there was an Oscar for faking Stockholm Syndrome, she would've won it by a landslide. He'd showed her how he wanted her to please him, and then she did, several times, as if she had been doing these things for years. Thank God she was a quick study; her commitment to doing it right further proved to him her sincerity.

At least he was more patient with her than Alex, who was always so anxious to get it over with for fear of being caught. Rowena had been right; Reiko was a passionate love-maker. Alex, in his inexperience and fear, lacked the General's intensity. Reiko preferred to take his time pleasing and being pleased, Olivia had observed. As far as he knew, he had all the time in the world to keep her occupied with him. And when he'd finally allowed her to wriggle free of him, she collapsed onto the bed beside him, fighting off sleep as he continued to kiss the graceful curve where her neck met her shoulder. In spite of herself, she had dozed off while waiting for the General to fall asleep beside her. She didn't even realize she'd closed her eyes.

A while later, a dream of her father jarred her awake, and convulsively she jerked up in the dimness, her hands tightening around cloth. A blanket. Pale moonlight shone through the hole in the roof ceiling. The shadowed shape of Reiko's form. A snore like canvas gently ripping. A few embers burned among the ashes in the wood stove. A lingering silence in the camp outside.

It hadn't been a dream then, or even a nightmare, sleeping with Reiko. She had actually done it. She wasn't quite sure how to feel about that, save for the overwhelming self-loathing she knew she'd never get rid of for the rest of her life. But it had been necessary, she reminded herself. A necessary evil done to help both her and Takeda escape. The thought alleviated the pain from the self-inflicted wound. Now everything that she had heard and done and felt was all jumbled in together with old tales of her family's heroism and the memory of Alex. She pulled the blanket around her bare shoulders, but it was not cold that made her shake. Her head hurt, too, and her skin crawled. But at least Rowena's plan to drug him had worked; the General was deeply sleeping now, drunk on the wine and herbs he'd unwittingly guzzled only a short time before.

With a disgusted snort, Olivia climbed naked out of his bed, careful to make no sudden movements that might accidentally wake him. Rowena swore to her that he'd be far too out of it once her herbs took effect, but the Cryomancer wanted to take no chances. Her diligence paid off and he continued to snore as she rested her bare feet on the fading carpet and crept around the bed to find his clothes and armor in a messy pile on the floor.

It wasn't hard to find the keys after that, and in the dim ray of moonlight shining upon her, Olivia fumbled for the lock on her collar. Wasting no time, she jammed the shiny cobalt key into the hole, and she refused to breathe, fearing that she'd been mistaken. Her heart pounded in her chest, wondering what she'd do if she was wrong. But as she'd predicted, they were a match, and she nearly screeched in glee when she felt the tumblers inside the lock turn. The latch immediately sprang open.

With a guttural growl, Olivia sneered and ripped it from her throat. She felt her powers well to the surface once more, the swell of them carried by the wave of rage inside of her, and as she glared at the tool of her enslavement, electric blue magic and thick, roiling fog crept up her arms. The cobalt collar froze in her palms because she willed it so, and when it was sufficiently brittle, she crushed it to splinters in her bare hands. _Cobalt is tough when it's refined, huh?_ she jeered as she remembered Takeda explaining it to her. _Well, ice beats cobalt_ , she bitterly hissed at the memory of his words.

Victoriously, Olivia stood up while the moonbeam enveloped her, and she tilted her head back slowly as she closed her eyes and her powers surged through her veins. It was raw, cold energy, as primal and cruel as Antarctica. It pulsated through her blood, infecting every part of her, screaming for revenge as the fog roiled from every pore in her body. The air around her cooled as the molecules rapidly slowed to a standstill. She drank in the cold, her old friend, and there, in the darkness of Reiko's tent, she was born again. And when she came to that realization, she extended her palm and watched the fog roil and condense only inches above the blue-stained skin. Instinctively, she flexed her fingers, and as she did they wrapped around the hilt of the kori sword that had just sprang fully grown from her thoughts.

Furiously, the Cryomancer looked at Reiko, still unconscious, dangerously unaware of his peril. Her sapphire eyes narrowed until they seemed black in the dim light. Darkness flitted behind her eyelids; for a moment, she became one with it. She subconsciously bared her teeth. Lips chapped by sun and saliva curled and stretched away from them in much the same manner as a hungry wolf's ready to pounce on a helpless deer. She crept towards him slowly, still careful not to make noise and wake him. As she stepped, she silently turned her kori sword over in her hand with blade pointed downward. It was almost a pity Reiko was so soundly asleep right now. Olivia longed to put him down face to face.

She thought a moment such as this would be more of a struggle. Her father had taught her never to kill anyone who couldn't return the favor; it wasn't fair or just, it was murder, plain and simple. Growing up in the Lin Kuei, she'd learned well that the threat of imminent death was the only justifiable reason for killing someone in cold blood like this. Her father would be ashamed of her right now could he see her, she was certain. He'd be ashamed of a lot, she bitterly reminded herself as she now stood over Reiko and watched him breathe in and out. But it was easy to push the elder Cryomancer out of her thoughts – and that thought alone nearly frightened her – because this was absolutely justified. The General had kidnapped her and threatened to kill her if her parents didn't play ball with his demands. If her father couldn't understand this preemptive strike, then that was _his_ problem, not hers.

Besides, it didn't matter much what he thought. When and if she and Takeda returned home, Olivia was leaving the Lin Kuei and never looking back.

She quietly raised the sword over his stomach. And then, something unexpected happened. Instead of Reiko lying helplessly beneath her, the Tolucan she'd killed in battle sprawled naked beneath the blankets. A little cry escaped her, but she managed to choke it down before it became a full-fledged shriek. Her hand instantly clamped itself over her mouth for added protection.

"Oh, no, no, no…" she muttered, sobbing through her fingers. Her grip on her sword loosened and she staggered backwards. Hot tears exploded from her eyes, warming the coldness inside. The man tossed his head to the side, grunting as he brushed his nose and snorted. But still he slept on, never waking up. Her hands trembled hard as she fought not to shudder.

 _Olivia, you have to do it_ , she heard her dad's voice in her head say. _This man's not real._

"Yes, he is! Yes, he is!" she chattered in a barely audible whisper. She doubled over and collapsed to her knees, dropping her sword on the ground.

 _Be brave, Olivia,_ his ghostly voice urged her. He might as well have been there beside her for as loud as he was inside her head. _Be brave_.

How could she be brave? she wondered. She'd murdered the man on that battlefield. She'd picked up the tree branch and bashed his brains in. It didn't matter that he was trying to kill her and Takeda. It didn't matter that it was war and she had no other choice. She wasn't brave. _Murder_ wasn't brave.

 _But how many people had died in Reiko's grab for power_? her dad reminded her, and he was right. How many had died since the Emperor, Shao Kahn, made him a general and sent him to massacre his enemies? How many would die if he succeeded in his endeavors now? _You can put an end to this, Livy_ , the Grandmaster's voice echoed through her brain.

Shaking, Olivia retrieved her sword and got to her feet. She forced herself to see Reiko, and not the ghost of the man she'd killed several days prior, blinking out the hallucination. Even though it worked, it didn't alleviate that gnawing sliver of doubt and guilt that was currently trying to convince her to run. It didn't matter. She always said that if she could've killed Hitler, she would have. So now it was time to put up or shut up. She gripped her sword with both hands now to steady it. Gulping, she crept forward to the side of his bed once again.

 _God, forgive me_ , she inwardly cried as she plunged her sword directly into Reiko's middle, using every shred of strength she possessed. She didn't stop until the blade pierced the mattress beneath him.

His eyes instantly bulged open in surprise and pain while blood gushed from his mouth, choking his cries into dull grunts. He wildly batted at her weapon, and thrashed at her, clawing open her arm in five dark scratches. Frightened, Olivia stumbled away, and she watched him gradually lose his strength from blood loss. He weakly grasped at an old, stone dagger he'd stashed beneath his pillow for just a situation such as this, and to her surprise, he tightly clamped his hand around it until it ripped into his flesh, wounding him further. More blood dribbled from his fist, pooling on the blanket.

Tears spilled down her cheeks as she watched the spectacle. She thought she'd feel satisfied at this moment of triumph, but she merely felt empty.

Finally, he stopped moving. Olivia couldn't watch him any longer. Quickly, she retrieved her robe and Erron Black's hat from a nearby table, threw the clothes on, and scurried outside into the darkness. Had she waited only moments longer, she would've seen the Cleric of Chaos emerge from the shadows to attend to the General, whose wound around her kori sword now sparkled with evil red light as it began to knit shut and drive out the foreign body in the middle of his chest.

* * *

The camp was eerily quiet as if it was deserted when Olivia ducked out of Reiko's tent and into the open desert. Her hackles instantly stood on end. She didn't like this. Something was wrong. She had to get Takeda and Rowena and get the hell out of here now. Thankfully, it wasn't hard to find her classmate. About five feet in front of the tent door, he was propped against a tall pole and chained tightly in place, his arms cuffed tightly around it behind him. On either side of him was Tarkatans, but they were sprawled on the ground as if they were…sleeping?

"Are you okay?" she whispered as she looked at them and then cautiously rushed to her classmate and began to fiddle with his shackles behind his back.

"You know, I don't think your new friend, Reiko, is going to like you setting me loose very much," he shot at her, clearly pissed off.

"He's not my friend," she snapped as she carefully froze the cuffs. In the moonlight, she watched the ice permeate the metal, discoloring it, turning it brittle. As soon as she heard the faint, familiar crackling stop, she snapped the cuffs in half like a twig and then scurried around to do the same to his leg irons.

"Are you sure?" he hissed at her. "It sure sounded like you and Reiko were becoming fast friends a few times. Loudly, too. Sounded like a deeply religious experience for you. You sure yelled for God a lot."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she growled as her cheeks flushed red with fiery embarrassment. It was bad enough she had to sleep with Reiko. It was somehow worse knowing that everyone within close proximity to his tent had _heard_ them too, and especially Takeda. That just increased the likelihood of her parents and Alex finding out.

"Oh, yes, you do," he shot back as he broke off the remaining metal around his wrists.

"What, are you jealous?" she snarled. She thought if anything would make him drop it, that would be it. But she was wrong.

"No, I feel bad for your boyfriend," he responded. "Does he know the kind of stuff that you do behind his back when he's not around?"

Olivia lost it. Before she realized what she was doing, she had shoved him against the pole by his throat, her fingertips clawing into the flesh just like a wild tiger. And then for added emphasis, she commanded her skin to cool – not enough to freeze him but definitely enough to send a message. And then she shoved her face to within an inch of his. He looked at her with wide, terrified eyes. She immediately saw that he recognized he'd crossed the line with her, and that he'd pushed her too far.

"I got my collar off and now I'm helping you escape," she snarled at him, squeezing just a little bit harder. "So this night never happened and I don't ever want to speak of it again. Do you understand me?"

"But-"

"If you breathe one more _word_ to me about this, you won't have to worry about what the Tarkatans will do to you because I will kill you myself," she cut him off. "So you just say to yourself over and over again that you don't know how I got loose, and you don't stop telling yourself that until you start to believe it's the truth."

She squeezed his throat so tightly now that he coughed, but he nodded his assent. "Okay," he croaked.

With that, she shoved his head back against the pole, and resumed her delicate work on his shackles. Her hands shook with anger, but inwardly, she struggled not to cry. He'd been right about Alex. If he knew half of what she'd done since she'd been in Outworld, he would immediately cease to love her. She swallowed the hard knot that was forming in her throat.

Takeda must have sensed it because as she broke his leg irons off his ankles, he said, "I'm sorry, Olivia. I shouldn't have said that."

"Drop it," she barked.

"Please-"

"I _said_ drop it!"

"Okay, okay," he replied as he climbed to his feet. He looked her up and down. "Nice hair," he teased her, fingering a braid that jangled with seashells. "You planning on going to Jamaica?"

"You really want to start with me?" she shot back as she slapped his hand away.

Behind them, Olivia heard footsteps crunch in the dirt, and she whirled around, her hands pulsating blue. But it was only Rowena, who held up a hand as she approached. In her other hand, the Cryomancer saw, she held a stack of neatly folded clothes.

"Where is everyone?" Olivia demanded to know.

"I put the same herbs I gave to you in the community water supply," the Healer said. "They're all sleeping. By the time they wake up, you will both be far from here."

Olivia breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you," she said.

"And I've brought you some fresh clothes for traveling through the desert," she continued. "That robe is not terribly practical."

"No," she said. "It's not." She looked at Takeda. "Turn around," she ordered him. She'd been exposed in front of men enough for one night. He shrugged and obeyed, and didn't turn around again until she was fully clothed and pulling on her tabi boots once more.

"Now, you must hurry," Rowena said. "After the Tarkatans and Edenians fell asleep, I packed food, water, and other supplies for your journey, and I also reclaimed your weapons. They are in saddlebags on the _iwanas_. Come, I will show you." The Hydromancer led the two teenagers to the edge of the camp where several golden lizards the size of pickup trucks were tied up. "I hope you know how to ride one," she said.

"Not especially, no," Takeda told her.

"How different can it be from riding a horse?" Olivia asked him.

He looked at her in annoyance. "I don't know how to ride a horse either," he hissed at her.

"Oh, well, that's just fantastic…Wild Bill doesn't know how to saddle up," she muttered before she scaled onto the larger of the two beasts. It squealed but held steady as the older woman untied it and handed the reins to the Cryomancer.

Rowena looked from her to Takeda. "They are docile creatures and they can survive in the desert for weeks without water," she said. "By then, I pray to the Water Mother that you will have safely arrived in Z'Unkarah."

"Thanks," he said.

"Get on," she urged him, and then she impatiently showed him how. Olivia, meanwhile, rolled her eyes.

"Are you coming with us?" he asked when he was safely on his _iwana_.

Rowena opened her mouth to answer, but a shrill whistling cut through the air, and something speeding plunged through her chest, silencing her forever. Blood sprayed the beasts as they reared back, shrieking in sudden panic while the Hydromancer fell to the ground, dead from the arrow in her heart. Olivia fought for control over her lizard and looked back. Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach as soon as she saw who was coming for them.

It was Reiko.

* * *

 **DarkAssassin15, and he's not nearly as bad as Rain! LOL**

 **PinkRedRose2, haha that'll be funny. Skarlet should find someplace to hide, methinks.**

 **John Lord, on a scale of 1 to 10 maybes, I give it a 6. ;)**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, nah, I needed her to get that collar off, so I couldn't waste any time. Blood magic may or may not be involved. ;)**

 **ROCuevas, what who will ask for?**

 **Hell-on-Training-Wheels, yes, he certainly is. He played right into Olivia's plan. Sorry you felt awkward, though. I mean, that's what I was going for because it was a cringeworthy moment, but I'm still sorry. LOL Well, I didn't consider Rowena from _Supernatural_ , but I could see why you'd think that. She's actually more like Melisandre from _Game of Thrones_ \- at least, in terms of her physical features. I hate that character but I just _love_ her long, dark red hair. It's so pretty. Haha Yeah, they couldn't sit around talking for long, but I had to let them take a _little_ break given that it's unrealistic for anyone to just run for hours on end without taking a breather every once in a while. And, Olivia had to have a bit of a meltdown because I want her to be more human, and right now, she's feeling quite a lot of despair. But I hope that having her get up and fight through that despair shows you all that she's still very courageous and strong. Thank you for the nice review!**

 **Esha Napoleon, thanks!**


	26. Reiko Lives

**Author's Note: I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday (if you celebrated), and if you're participating in Black Friday today, I hope you all have the decency to turn your phone horizontally before recording any fights that break out. ;)**

* * *

"I didn't say you could leave!" Reiko bellowed as he staggered shirtless towards Olivia and Takeda. He snapped his hand towards them, and magic followed in the same direction. It abruptly yanked her from the _iwana_ she sat upon and slammed her down to the festering ground.

Gasping for air, the Cryomancer's head snapped around, hunting the source of that power where none could be seen. When the General stalked towards her and her classmate, however, both teenagers were already moving. Hanging in his two-handed grip, a massive scythe of bronze and iron spat burst after burst of magical energy at the teenagers. Fearsome energies ran wild, crackling and spitting, stunning several of the _iwanas_ tied to the line behind them, and they fell, unconscious. Red lightning found the earth, punched holes entirely through the thickest layers of crust, and the desert trembled with the sound of thunder.

And none of it touched Olivia or Takeda.

They were simply never there when the magic soared past, never in the radius when the bolts of lightning ignited like bombs. The Cryomancer herself moved with a grace the most agile angel couldn't have matched, guided by insight that bordered on psychic. She swayed from, rolled under, or tumbled over anything that came near, and the rage that marred Reiko's face twisted his features further still.

 _How is he not dead?_ she wondered as she dodged him. She had killed him, she was certain. _No one_ could have survived that without medical intervention, to say nothing of fighting minutes later as if he'd merely gotten a paper cut.

Suddenly, a column of blue and green flames exploded before her and knocked her backwards a moment before a sharp weapon raced through the air and plunged through Takeda's gauzy shirt, catching him in the belly. His head gazed up at the approaching General, and he let out a sad, pitiful croak before he stretched out his bloody hand towards the sky. He fell to his knees, gazing upward in shock, his eyes wild and wide with surprise, and then he collapsed to the muck, groaning.

"Takeda!" she screeched.

"You're very good at this game, Olivia," Reiko now growled as he stalked closer. "Playing to my ego in order to steal my keys? That was very clever. But know this: you cannot friend a hawk unless you are a hawk yourself, alone and only a sojourner in the land, without friends or need of them!" The last words were issued like a curse, and with them, he hurled a handful of throwing stars that he'd conjured with his magic.

At the speed of thought, a kori shield formed against her arm and protected her against all when they burrowed into the slightly curved circle of ice. Without a word, the General threw another set of stars at Olivia, but this time the Cryomancer dove to the side and sprayed a cloud of ice crystals back at her attacker. Small like glittering diamond chips, the shards of ice were razor sharp and abundant. Yet Reiko calmly threw up his arms in response, and as he did a wall of blue-green fire burst from the ground and shielded him. The ice melted instantly, evaporating into steam and wafting through the air on a thick cloud of smoke.

But the fork-tongued flames licking at the sky did not deter Olivia. With a ferocious roar, she leapt through the inferno with her leg aimed straight for her enemy, and she planted her foot in his chest. The blow knocked Reiko backwards into a graceful roll, and when he came up, he came up with his scythe still clutched tightly in his hands. Expertly, he swung it around and neatly cut a line across Olivia's breast, coaxing a pained hiss from the teenager a moment before blood wet the front of her shirt. Then he swung it around and chopped towards her head like an axe. The Cryomancer blocked it with a newly formed kori sword, but it couldn't withstand the force of Reiko's ferocity. The ice instantly shattered into thousands of pieces. Stunned, Olivia stupidly looked at the hilt and jagged blade she still held in her hand, and then angrily swiped the broken weapon across her enemy's cheek. A small trickle of blood wept from the wound and stained his skin red.

But it didn't seem to bother Reiko, who jumped into a backwards spin kick that caught the Cryomancer in the face. An explosion of white hot stars rained through her eyes as she collapsed to the ground in a heap with a cry, her shield shattering, but she didn't waste time before she did yet another kip-up. As her vision cleared, she stepped into a roundhouse kick to the ribs that forced the General to stumble backwards and to the side a bit. While her enemy was off balance, Olivia back-fisted him across the face, cracking his jaw to the side. Wasting no time, she then threw a reverse punch to the other's eye orbit.

But before she landed her shot, Reiko grabbed her wrist and wrenched it around so hard that crackling pain rippled up her arm, prompting her to squeal. With lightning fast reflexes, he coiled his arm around Olivia's, locking the Cryomancer's elbow at a weird angle before he clasped his fingers around her neck, jerked her down, and kneed her in the face. She yelped again, stunned. Then he threw her to the ground with a determined grunt, and spat his mouthful of blood onto her back while she spent a moment groaning in pain and writhing in the muck.

"Weak castings from a perfect mold," he sneered at her.

"You'll find me strong enough, Reiko," she grunted.

The General now lunged towards her body on the ground with an angry growl, but the Cryomancer had quickly recovered. She threw herself onto her back, drew her legs to her chest, and kicked Reiko like a mule in the shins. She cursed herself for missing his knees; had she landed _that_ shot, he'd never be able to walk again. He immediately cried out in pain as he stumbled backwards, giving Olivia time to jump to her feet and side-kick the warrior in the kidney. The General botched her plans, however, when he unexpectedly disappeared, reemerged on the other side of her, lifted her into the air, and slammed her to the ground. Before she even knew what had happened, the Cryomancer found herself on her back with the wind knocked out of her.

"I like you on your back before me," he growled.

She coughed and sucked down air, clawing at her chest as she tried to breathe again. Reiko used the opportunity to lunge at her with his scythe as if to stab her through the chest. Olivia saw it and, gasping for air, she immediately rolled out of the way. Then, as the sharp blade bounced off dirt, she swept the General off his feet and then drove her elbow to his face.

As the Cryomancer now leapt to her feet with white fog wafting around her glowing blue hands, she threw an ice ball at him. Reiko promptly rolled out of the way and dodged it, and neither warrior particularly cared or noticed when it hit a tent in the distance behind them and froze it. The General now swept her legs out from beneath her, and as Olivia fell backwards, she unexpectedly found herself sliding through ice. It was a strange feeling, disorienting. Falling through chunky white walls like the inside of the most massive crevasse in Arctika, it was exactly the same experience as teleporting with her father. Vaguely, Olivia cheered herself for doing it on her own – even if only by accident – because it reassured her of her ability to do it, and she knew she could use this power to sucker punch him. But Reiko was not fooled when she emerged from her protective womb on the other side of him. He caught the Cryomancer by the throat with his free hand and effortlessly flung her to the giant webbed feet of her _iwana_.

Now Reiko curled his hand into a fist as he roared, and this time a patch of blue-green fire exploded from the ground beneath Olivia's tabi boots. Startled, she yelped and sprayed the fire with an ice shower as she leapt aside. The flames froze into beautiful tendrils as they curled towards the sky, but suddenly exploded into thousands of shards that rained down on both warriors in cold droplets of water vapor.

Reiko now grabbed Olivia by the scruff of the neck and again threw her backwards a few feet as if she weighed as little as a rag doll. But this time, as the General stalked towards her, his face twisted into a satisfied smirk, the Cryomancer promptly slapped the ground with an ice-charged palm; she watched in satisfaction as blue ice surged through the viscous dirt, popping and crackling, and slithered around his ankles, creeping up both legs like twin snakes. Immediately, they froze him in place, and she laughed triumphantly at her victory.

Reiko scowled as he twisted his feet to break loose, but the thick, strong ice held him fast as if it had completely bonded to him. Olivia quickly did a kip-up and stamped towards him like an angry bull with its eyes fixed on a matador's red cloth. In that moment, all of her hatred, all of her fury, all of her lust for vengeance against the General exploded through her, and she threw what had to be the most powerful right hook she'd ever dealt to anyone in her life. The blow struck Reiko in the cheekbone, but Olivia scarcely heard the loud crunch of her knuckles cracking or his eye orbit breaking over the sound of her heart pounding in her chest. It felt _good_ to hit this smug son-of-a-bitch that hard, even if she _had_ broken her knuckles like she now thought. He crumpled, woozy and weak, while fiery pain flooded swollen tissue in her hand.

Olivia raked her fingers of her left hand through his hair and forced him to look at her. "I want you to know something," she panted, trembling from pain and adrenaline. "The thought, the very _idea_ , of you touching me makes my skin _crawl_ ," she hissed before she thrust a kori knife into his heart. "Let's see you come back from _that_ ," she spat at him as large clots of blood and spit drooled from his mouth.

Now she raced to Takeda's side. He laid on the ground, bleeding from the hole in his belly where Reiko's knife had wounded him, the knife itself lying beside him. He'd pulled it out himself. It was the same one the General kept under his pillow at night for safe-keeping. Takeda's eyes wobbled lazily in his sockets, and his breathing was labored and slow. She knew she shouldn't move him, but she had no idea how long Rowena's herbs would keep the enemy army asleep and they had to get away. With racing heart, she firmly pressed her palm into the injury to freeze it, just as her father had taught her to slow the bleeding, and then threaded his arm around her neck to lift him to his feet.

"Stay with me, Takeda," she muttered, though she wasn't entirely confident he'd heard her.

"I don't want to die," he answered in a long and labored breath.

"Yeah, well, then you're going to have to climb up," she told him as she wrapped his fingers around the reins for support. "I'll help you."

"Okay," he wheezed. He held on to the reins and tiredly lifted his hand to the pommel while Olivia slid his foot into the stirrup. He groaned in pain when she pushed him upwards with her shoulders. A smear of blood stained the _iwanas_ scales in a vertical line, but he managed to climb into his saddle anyway. He leaned forward unsteadily, but he retained his tight grip and somehow managed to stay upright.

Satisfied, Olivia scurried onto her mount. "Come on," she beckoned him. "We don't have much time to get a head start."

"I'm coming," he mumbled as he followed her towards Z'Unkarah.

* * *

"Kuai Liang, may I speak with you?" Kenshi asked the Grandmaster as the rescue party trekked after the children beneath the full moon.

They were getting close, he sensed. Like infrared light, he had started to see in his mind's eye the residual psychic energy that Takeda and Olivia had left behind as they passed through these parts. Though the others couldn't see it, he saw it for what it was: a trail of breadcrumbs. His discovery prompted him to take point so he could guide his companions through the night.

"What is it?" he replied. He was at the middle of the pack, Kenshi could tell by the sound of his voice. _He is walking with Tomas_ , Sento whispered to him, _but an uncomfortable silence exists between them_. _The cyber-ninja is sad_ , a female voice said.

"Up here, please," he said while the other voices offered reasons as to why Smoke was upset.

The agent heard his old friend sigh in annoyance, but he trotted towards him anyway to oblige his request. "What do you want?" he asked. It didn't take a telepath to register to the tension in his voice, or the agitation. His friend, he could tell, was painfully exhausted and running on fumes. He needed some rest, and he needed some peace of mind.

"I could use your insight," he began in a soft voice, though that was only a half-truth. The Cryomancer needed to come to certain realizations on his own, and Kenshi had to convince this blind man to see. "Do you remember how I went blind?" he asked, the thought of sight and memory at the forefront of his mind.

"Yes," he replied. "Of course I do."

"At the time, I thought that was the very worst thing that could ever happen to me," he began. "How could I live without my sight? What is a warrior without his eyes?"

"I don't know, Kenshi, it doesn't seem like it's been much of a disability for you."

"It's not," he admitted with a half-smile. "I adapted, as a warrior should."

"Of course, owning a seeing-eye sword doesn't hurt either," he said, and for the first time in ages, the swordsman laughed.

"No, it doesn't," he agreed, still amused by the Grandmaster's quip. His tone, though, quickly returned to seriousness. "I learned, Kuai Liang, that I was wrong. Behind me, there are so many memories yet so little worth remembering, and in front of me a long road with nothing to aim for and no one to share it with. Not even my own son." The truth of his words bit into his heart, and he sighed in sadness. "That is the very worst thing that could ever happen to me. My own son wants nothing to do with me."

"My own daughter wants nothing to do with me," he shrugged in an attempt to relate empathy.

"What is the child but an extension of the father?" Hanzo challenged them, now joining the two warriors' side.

"I had to be an adult, a father without a son, just to keep him safe," Kenshi shot back, annoyed because his old friend's words rang true. "You know that. You know I wanted more than anything to keep him, but it was just too dangerous for him."

"Is there a point to this discussion?" the Cryomancer now asked, his own tone even more agitated. Inside, his heart burned with pain at Hanzo's words. Memories of sending Olivia away flashed through his mind, as did the guilt that accompanied them, and there were memories of his cruel father, and the notion that he'd wrongly taught her that she was as unloved by him as he was by An Zhi. _He thinks he's an extension of his father_ , Sento's voices unanimously agreed, and the swordsman couldn't argue. Nor could he argue with the fact that his pain was slowly driving him mad.

Kenshi sighed. "I envy you, Kuai Liang," he confessed. "You know your children. You've been there since the moment they were born. No…from the moment they were _conceived_. You have watched them grow and know every detail about them, everything that they love and hate, even every line on their hands."

"You give me far too much credit," he grumbled, and the swordsman felt a flicker of the Cryomancer's hatred for Alex bloom inside his heart like fire. "I don't know my children as well as you think I do."

"I know almost nothing about Takeda," he replied. "I didn't even know he was alive until I heard from Sonya that Mavado was going to start killing the people I cared about to get to me. Eight years wasted. I would never have left Suchin's side had I known. But she kept it secret so that I could do my own thing." He wistfully smiled and then let his hand curl around an old pendant that hung around his neck. It was a jade frog set in a silver back. He hadn't taken it off once since he'd first gotten it several years ago.

Kenshi cleared his throat and showed it to his friends. "All I know about my son is that he loves frogs," he said. "After I found Suchin dead and I took him to protect him, I had no idea where we would go, so we just kept moving from one place or the other, never stopping except to sleep a little here and there. While we were traveling, I woke up early one morning to find him scratching up this pendant that his mother had given to him for his birthday. Of course, I asked him what he was doing, but he wouldn't show me until he was done. Finally, he finished his task and brought the frog to me to show me what he'd done to it. On the back, he'd managed to etch the words, 'To Papa-san, for luck. Love, Tak.'" Kenshi chuckled at the memory. "He'd run out of room to write his name," he said. "He was pretty disgusted with himself for that."

"He is harder on himself than anyone," Hanzo muttered with a faint smile. "He is much like his father in that regard."

Kenshi sadly nodded. "He wanted me to have it. It was the only thing he had left of his mother, and he gave it to me." He blinked heavily behind his blindfold, fighting tears. "He barely knew me, but he just accepted me like I'd been there for him all along. He had such a big heart, just like Suchin." His voice broke a little at that, but he cleared his throat and forced himself to regain his composure. "It was in that moment that I realized that the world needed more people like him and less people like me, and I couldn't risk anyone killing him to get after me. I certainly couldn't risk poisoning his goodness with my own jaded bitterness. So I brought him to the Shirai Ryu and left him." He cleared his throat again and frowned. "I didn't even say goodbye. I was…afraid."

"Afraid of what?" Kuai Liang now asked.

Kenshi didn't answer him for the longest time. It was the source of his greatest shame in life, and he could scarcely bear to admit it to himself, let alone others. "That he would beg me not to leave him," he finally answered. "Because I know that if he had, I would've taken him with me, to hell with the consequences. And that would've been selfish of me. Takeda deserved a life of normalcy. So for his sake, I had to be a man."

The swordsman felt the Cryomancer's immediate guilt in response to his words, but it was Hanzo who spoke. He said, "Sons do not ache for their father's masculinity, Kenshi. They ache for their father's heart."

He contemplated the Grandmaster's words, and nodded at their wisdom. "I think that could be true of all children," he remarked, now glancing at Kuai Liang. More thorns pierced the Cryomancer's heart.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" he asked.

"It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life," he confessed. "I had to force myself to let go in order to do what was necessary for Takeda's well-being. And as a result, the distance and time I put between us gave me the clarity I needed to fight the dangers that threatened his very existence."

"Are you suggesting I shouldn't try to save my daughter?" he snarled, the paradoxical fire in his blood beginning to boil.

"Of course not, Kuai Liang," he said, and he placed a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder to comfort him. "What kind of a hypocrite would I be if I did? I'm right here with you, marching through Outworld to save Takeda."

"Then what do you mean?" he snapped. "Just spit it out, Kenshi."

The swordsman sighed. The Cryomancer was not the easiest man to manipulate, not like Johnny Cage or even Sonya. Tricks would not work on him. "What I'm suggesting, Kuai Liang," he began, "is that you're so worried about her that you're not behaving like an effective leader." The Grandmaster snorted and scoffed at that, and threw up his hands before he started to fall back, but Kenshi and Hanzo both promptly gripped him by his arms and pulled him back to their side. "I am not telling you that to insult you," he firmly declared, "I'm telling you that because I'm your friend, and friends are honest with each other." When Kuai Liang didn't offer to resist, he released his arm and said, "I can't fault you for your pain. I know what you feel because I feel it myself. That anxiety, that dread, that knowledge that if something happens to them, I'll never forgive myself."

"How magnanimous of you," he drily remarked.

"Our children are pieces of our soul, and they sustain us," he said. "And should they be destroyed, the rest of our soul will wither and die of grief. It's a fate worse than death because it turns the natural order right on its head, and such an event must always have a catastrophic consequence."

"I'm going to save them before that happens," he stubbornly replied.

"I hope that you're right," he said. "But in the meantime, I advise you to heed my counsel, if for no other reason than for the sake of your daughter."

"And what would you advise?"

Kenshi cleared his throat. "Step down as the leader of our group," he delicately replied. "Let Fujin lead us. He, more than anyone, knows what exactly is at stake. And let Erron guide us through the desert. Kotal Kahn spoke highly of his knowledge, and even Fujin has deferred to him since we found him, and he's yet to lead us astray."

Now the Grandmaster inhaled deeply. "And why would I do this? It would make me look weak."

"No, Kuai Liang, it wouldn't," he argued. "Recklessly running into dangerous situations, trying to kill your best friend's son, acting like a certifiable maniac… _those_ are things that make you look weak. There is no shame for the anger and fear that you're feeling. But it takes a man of tremendous emotional grit to admit that he's been compromised and needs someone to take his burden away."

"The burden will go away when my daughter is safely in my arms and I'm taking her home," he growled.

"Yes, I know," he patiently replied. "But you're not thinking clearly. I know it. I feel it."

"Are you spying on me? On my thoughts?" His fingers curled into a fist.

"No," he said, and that was the truth. " _Common sense_ tells me that you're not thinking clearly. You've been pushing yourself nonstop, with no rest and very little food. You're constantly having nightmares when you actually fall asleep, and that's not that often, Kuai Liang. You have been running your mind and your body ragged since we've left the Lin Kuei Temple, and sooner or later, they're both going to give out completely."

"I'm fine," he said.

"No, you're not," Hanzo now said. "Kenshi is right. You are no good to anyone when your judgment is as unclear as your thoughts. Least of all to your daughter. You need to center yourself again."

"You must let go of her," the swordsman added, his voice still soft and calm to keep the Cryomancer calm too. "Let Fujin steer the ship. Trusting him to do right for your family will be the hardest thing you'll ever have to do, just like trusting Hanzo to raise my son was the hardest thing _I_ ever had to do. But for your daughter's sake, you must." He paused and swallowed hard, now resting his hand on the Grandmaster's shoulder once more. "Kuai Liang, I've heard you say often since we began this quest that you'd give anything just to have Olivia home again. Well, I say to you now to give over your selfishness and your pride. That's the price you have to pay to get her back."

The Grandmaster blinked at that and said nothing, but Kenshi recognized the revelation take hold. The stubbornness began to melt, and he sighed as his head dropped and he nodded as if defeated. "I hope you're right," he finally mumbled before he stopped in his tracks altogether and turned to halt the company. "Listen, everyone," Kuai Liang began, speaking loudly. "I need to tell you something."

"What is it, Cousin?" Fujin wanted to know. He stepped forward, his face stamped with concern and mistrust.

He cleared his throat and shifted from one foot to the other. "I think…I think I need to step down as the leader of this expedition," he announced.

 _He's embarrassed by this_ , Sento whispered to Kenshi, but it was really just stating the obvious.

"My judgment is compromised, and I'm not thinking clearly like I should be." He looked to Anya at the forefront of the group, whose mouth was comically agape in shock.

"But what about Olivia?" she demanded to know.

"I'm not leaving the expedition," he told her. "As Kenshi and Hanzo have been so quick to remind me, I've made some very bad choices from the beginning, and I just…I don't think you should trust me right now." He sadly gazed at her. "I'm not in the right frame of mind to be calling the shots, Ahn."

"You're the Grandmaster," Tomas tried to remind him. Kenshi sensed the confusion and the fear swirling through the cyber-ninja's brain. "It doesn't matter how hard it is, you _have_ to lead-"

"Olivia is my _daughter_!" he snapped, now glaring at his best friend. "I will do anything – _anything_ – to save her." The Cryomancer quickly wiped his eyes, humiliated. Kenshi felt his own words burn inside his friend's heart, scorching at the pain of dealing with his missing child. "Fujin and Erron are my two nominations to take over for me because they know this land better than any of us, and I trust that Erron knows what he's doing."

"I don't know what I could've said to give you that idea," the gunslinger joked.

"No," Tomas argued, ignoring him. "The Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei is supposed to bethe light in the darkness to his warriors. He's supposed to rise above us all. Lead us through the most difficult times. Kuai Liang…" He helplessly looked at his best friend. "My _pr̆ítel_ …"

"I can't, Tomas," he replied, trembling. He clenched his fingers into fists. "I'm afraid I'm going to lose her, and that fear is driving me to commit stupid acts of desperation. I'm compromised. And it's going to get us all killed."

"You are _stronger_ than that," his oldest friend reminded him.

"No, I'm not. And I have a confession to make," he said, swallowing hard. More pain and guilt flared in his heart. "It proves that my judgment is clouded, and that I'm not as strong as you think I am." Tears sprang to his eyes and he furiously wiped them away before he looked at his wife. "Please forgive me," he begged her.

As expected, she regarded him suspiciously. "What did you do?" she lowly replied, taking a step towards him.

Kuai Liang shook his head and then faced the desert beyond. "Bi-han, Tomas, and I discussed what to do about Livy's Rite of Ascension," he began, remembering a day when his brother reluctantly visited the Temple. "They both counseled that she was ready to graduate. I didn't want to listen to them, but they finally convinced me. She _was_ ready to test." The Cryomancer now rested his face on his palm, squeezing the edges of his scalp with his fingers to massage away the growing headache. "The night before her birthday, I told her to get ready for the next day because I _was_ planning on letting her test." He scoffed. "She was so happy. Her eyes lit up. It was the first time I'd seen her happy with me in ages."

"I don't understand," Anya said, now approaching him. "If you were planning to let her test, then why did you humiliate her in front of the Temple like that?"

He glanced back at her. "Tomas had told me that sometimes, the way a parent should show love is to let their baby bird fly away. And God, how she wanted to fly away!" He now looked back to Kenshi. "Fly away from _me_ ," he muttered around a ball of needles now forming in his throat. "I could see it in her eyes as I looked down on her. She was just…so eager to test, and she was ready." Kuai Liang's head sagged down. "Tomas and Bi-han were right. She was more than ready for her Rite of Ascension. But it occurred to me that _I_ wasn't ready. Not yet. I just wanted her for myself a little bit longer. Was that too much to ask?"

"How…how could you be so selfish?" his wife whispered to him as a tear now slid down her cheek. "Don't you know what you did to her?"

"You don't understand," he muttered. He kicked a stone sticking out of the sand. "You couldn't possibly. You didn't grow up like I did."

"No, but _I_ did," Tomas now hissed. "An Zhi was as cruel to me as he was to you, Kuai Liang. I got whipped with the cat-o-nine-tails right beside you. But at least you had your brother. Who did I have, except for you? And in spite of that, I didn't balk like a coward when Alex or Morgan were ready to test, nor will I balk when Connor or Nyka come of age. And I certainly won't back down from my responsibilities."

"You missed the first two years of Alex's life," the Cryomancer coldly reminded him. "I've actually been there for Olivia since before she was born."

" _Vyser si voko_ _,"_ the other cursed at him in Czech. His face was scarlet with barely-controlled rage. "That doesn't mean I care any less for my children."

"You can talk to me when one of your children goes missing."

"It's your fault she's missing to begin with," Tomas shot back. His face, which was usually so light and carefree, twisted into an even uglier scowl than before and he squared off with his friend.

"That changes nothing," Hanzo said to the cyber-ninja before Kuai Liang could reply. "Even if he had agreed to let Olivia test, her test still would've been to train with me in Shikoku, a suggestion that I believe _you_ made. Reiko still would have attacked the Shirai Ryu, and she still would have been taken hostage."

"It changes everything!" Kuai Liang now shouted at them all as frost now crept up his hands uncontrollably. "If I had just done what I'd planned in the first place, she might still be lost in the Outworld wilderness, but at least she wouldn't be out there, hating my guts, thinking that I hate her too."

Erron scoffed. "When you give a lesson in meanness to a critter or a person, don't be surprised when they learn their lesson," he said. "But fortunately for you, that kid don't hate you, partner." He was currently leaning against the gully wall with his arms crossed. "There's a mighty big difference between hate and hurt, and that little lady is definitely not the former." He now leaned over and undid a boot to dump the sand from it. "Well, maybe she hates you a little," he admitted a moment later.

 _He's sympathetic to the Cryomancer,_ Sento whispered to Kenshi as the gunslinger spoke. _He understands the guilt that the other carries._

"Either way," Kuai Liang continued, not reassured, "Tomas is right. It's my fault Olivia's missing, and she's out there, alone, doing God knows what to survive, and thinking that I hate her. I couldn't bear the thought of losing her like that, with so much animosity between us. The guilt of what I did to her? It's compromised me. So I've been reckless with my decisions. Running into situations I'm poorly prepared to handle. Endangering your lives and showing you far less respect than you deserve." The Grandmaster now looked to Fujin, who had crossed his muscular arms by this point and was frowning. "You know I'm right. I'm not fit to lead right now. I know I'm the Grandmaster, but I'm just not thinking clearly and so I'm not _acting_ like the Grandmaster. I'm just going to get us all hurt or killed."

The Wind God sighed. "Well, you're not as pig-headed as Raiden always says you are," he muttered. "And I agree with you. You're an impulsive soul, Kuai Liang, but it's only gotten worse since this whole ordeal began. So I will assume command. Erron will guide us. And Hanzo and Kenshi will stay close to you in order to monitor your behavior and ensure your safety."

Kuai Liang nodded. "Thank you for understanding."

"And on that note, I suggest we make camp here for a couple of hours," Erron said, but his declaration was immediately punctuated by the dry, splitting crack of thunder booming in the distance. Red lightning surged through the sky and crashed to the earth, casting an eerie light show across the sand dunes.

"That is not normal," Kailyn spoke as she and Anya, who was standing next to her, gazed at the sky.

"No, it's not," Fujin agreed with her as a vortex suddenly swirled around him, lifting him high into the air on a current to give him a better look. By the time he lifted off the ground, however, the lightning had already stopped.

"What in the world was that?" Morgan asked, looking up at her father as he hovered above, searching the desert.

 _Reiko_ , Sento told Kenshi. _Magic_ , the voices whispered. _He has Shao Kahn's magic, and he's using it against the children_.

"Reiko's attacking Takeda and Olivia," he reported in a voice that belied his sudden panic.

"What?" Alex said, now stalking towards him. "But why? He promised not to hurt them."

"I don't know," Kenshi told everyone as they now turned to face him for an answer.

"This way," he barked, not waiting for Fujin to rejoin them. "I don't think they're very far."

* * *

"Foolish. Unbelievably foolish. I thought you'd stopped letting your fondness for women distract you. It is apparent I was mistaken."

Though her words were accusatory, even petulant, Skarlet's raspy tone was as flat and cold as a frozen lake in the Bīnglěng Di Dìyù. Only the fingers of her left hand, drumming a frustrated beat on her pale thigh, gave any further indication of her exasperation. They left smears of congealed blood on her skin, those fingertips – the only remaining trace of her recent attempt to clean Reiko's battle wounds, including the one through his heart, before she tried to free him of the ice that entombed his legs.

The General stood rigidly in place, trapped by the Cryomancer child's ice. In his hands, she'd placed the life-giving kamidogu knife which had been refashioned from the delicate plates of old. It lay like a sodden lump of bloody flesh on his fingers – too grotesque to keep, too morbidly fascinating to throw away. It was the thing that sustained his life, that fed him Blood Magik to keep him alive when he was wounded and to grant him wisdom and power when he was healthy. It had been a gift of that Chaos cleric who baptized him all those years ago, a talisman that he'd been entrusted to protect. It seemingly drank in Takeda's blood, reveling in the clotting gore, recharging.

"It was worth the risk," he finally answered his construct.

Skarlet glared upward at his face, as he seemed determined not to look at her directly. "Worth the risk?" The ice in her voice was now sharp enough to draw blood. "You compromised our entire effort! You threw that thing at that boy and could have killed him, even though he is the key to your entire plan. I cannot understand why you would do such a thing!"

"I saw an opening, and I took it," he said quietly, cutting the construct off midstream. "The knowledge we might have gained, to say nothing of more tangible prizes, made it worth the gamble. Yes, I lost the fight, but consider what I've won. Now that the Cryomancer is off her leash, we know now what sorts of tactics she'll likely employ against us. She must deal, once again, with a gravely wounded traveling companion, which will slow her down. And most importantly, Takeda is now mine."

"Then have him kill the girl and summon him back," she shot back.

"I can't," he responded as she chipped away at the ice around his feet.

"And why not?" she demanded to know.

"Because Olivia gravely wounded me not once, but twice," he replied as she finally cracked the ice enough for him to wiggle loose. "Blood Magik resurrected me, Construct, but I am still too weak to cast the necessary spells."

The Blood Magik was actually squeezing him, reaching out with great tendrils so it might crush his mind to its breast and feel his thoughts burning. He'd begun to sweat across his forehead, his neck…But not his hands. His hands were steady, cool, and comfortable on the kamidogu's hilt.

"But-"

"Enough for now!" he refrained from shouting, not out of any desire to remain diplomatic with his minion, but simply because he lacked the energy to spit his words out with any real power. "Scourge tells me that the Earthrealmers are close now," he told her. "I need you to delay them. Take the Tarkatans to assist you, whichever ones have awoken by now, and go immediately. I will take the rest of the army and pursue the teenagers into the desert."

Skarlet grumbled something unintelligible and swept away from him with a quick bow of her head. The heavy steel of her shoulder armor added its own metallic voice as she trekked towards the closest tents. Behind her, her master remained at the scene of the fight, sagging in a manner unbecoming of a General and prince, fixated wholly on the power of the kamidogu and of his quest to retrieve Shinnok's amulet.

* * *

 **Esha Napoleon, oh, yeah, he's totally pissed :)**

 **Da Hybrid Queen, nope, never!**

 **PinkRedRose2, well, _someone_ gets to castrate Reiko either literally or metaphorically, but I'm still debating about who that should be. But yeah, the kids have to run like hell again to get away!**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, since when have I ever made it so easy for them? ;)**

 **Hell-on-Training-Wheels, hey, pass me a beer! My dad is telling dad jokes and I'm entirely too sober for this. Rowena was as compelling as I could make her for such a short part, but there had to be consequences for her treachery, and she seemed like the most obvious choice. As for Olivia actually biting the bullet and taking one for the team, it's like we talked about: she was just playing him and was counting on his ego getting the best of him. LOL I have to have _some_ humor in such a depressing chapter, but I'm glad that line by Takeda went over so well. God most _definitely_ wants none of that! :D The lizards are just giant iguanas. The name I came up with for them is the Taino word for them and where we got the modern name for them. It just sounded cool ;) But yeah, they're pretty fast and they're like the camels of Outworld. **

**Guest, don't feel bad, I'm not a big fan of turkey or sweet potatoes either. It's funny; everyone around me always complains about gaining weight during the holidays, but I'm over here losing weight because I don't particularly like Thanksgiving fare myself. I'd much rather put all that money towards buying nice, thick steaks! But, tradition.**

 **ROCuevas, thank you, I'm glad you think so! :)**


	27. The Earthrealm Champions Fight Back

Moonlight winked over the tops of the towering sand dunes as they began to taper off into a festering valley that Fujin had trouble remembering from his days traveling through Outworld. The land was hideously unpleasant, as the rough contours, leathery surfaces, foul air, and occasional unexplained gusts all combined to suggest that they'd ventured into something's bronchial system, perhaps, even, its sinuses. What had caused this bizarre landscape remained a mystery to the Wind God, but he had a sinking suspicion this was Shao Kahn's doing. There was a standing joke between him and his brother, Raiden: when in doubt, blame it on Shao Kahn.

If Morgan was frightened by this place or of Outworld, she gave no sign of it. Fujin watched his only daughter as she moved amongst the Earthrealm Champions, touching Alex on the shoulder, sharing a joke with Kenshi, helping Anya dig a rock out of Blue's paw. Her purple Lin Kuei tunic rustled softly when she moved. Her curly hair was pulled back into a bun at her crown, but it was beginning to lose its shape. Thin locks of it streamed from the rough donut of hair that wrapped around itself. Fujin watched a breeze lift hair the color of corn silk, more silvery like his than gold like her mother's, and wondered when his daughter had grown so big. Twenty, and a woman now.

 _Let her become a powerful woman,_ he asked the Elder Gods. _Let her become a mighty warrior like her mother. Let her live to see tomorrow, and twenty-one, and fifty. Let her hold her own children in her arms. Please. Himavat, please._ As he watched her, this tall, young woman with the Falcata spear and Seidan wolf prowling at her and Anya's heels, all he could see was the baby the Hydromancer Healers had placed in his arms in Tlachtga all those years ago.

"Morgan," he suddenly called, not really knowing why.

She looked back at him with a bright, beautiful smile. By the Elder Gods, she looked more like her mother every day. "Yeah?" she asked.

"Come walk with me," he beckoned, also smiling.

Obediently, she left her Aunt's side and dropped back to him. "What's up?" she asked.

He shook his head and shrugged, and then curled his arm around her shoulder, pulled her close, and planted a kiss on her temple. "Have I told you lately how much I love you?" he said as they trudged along, his arm still draped over her shoulder.

"No," she beamed and then rested her head on his shoulder.

"Well, I do," he told her. Then he kissed her temple again.

"What's wrong, Daddy?" she asked him, pulling away. She gazed at him expectantly to coax out an answer.

He chuckled at that. She was smart as a whip too. "Nothing," he told her, though that was only a half-truth. What _was_ wrong? He knew there was something, and it was nagging at him uncomfortably, and he was almost positive it was about her being an adult now. He began to think he understood his cousin more than the Cryomancer realized, and when he came to that revelation, he knew he had to help the man. He sighed and looked her in her lavender eyes which were so like her mother's. "I was just thinking how all grown up you are, and how proud I am of you."

"Aw," she murmured, blushing. "Thank you."

"We did good work with her, didn't we?" Tomas' voice chimed in as he joined their side. He had been walking at the rear of the group by himself, sulking.

For once, Fujin agreed with the annoying little urchin. "Yes, we did," he said. Then he nudged Morgan forward a little. "I wish to speak with Smoke, please," he told her. "Please tell your Aunt to come to me as well." Morgan said nothing, but she nodded and rejoined Anya and Blue's side a short distance ahead. Kailyn walked with them as well. Fujin watched her whisper to the Healer and then Anya stopped walking and waited for the Wind God to catch up to her.

"Kuai Liang made the right decision to step down, you know," the Wind God opened when Anya and Blue joined them. "You both know that, don't you?"

Tomas exhaled noisily and his face twisted into a miserable scowl. But finally, he nodded. "Yes, I do," he admitted. Sympathetically, Fujin patted him on the shoulder. This rescue mission hadn't been easy on the Enenra for an abundance of reasons, and he wasn't accustomed to seeing the man so downtrodden. Usually, Smoke was an insufferable jokester.

Fujin now looked to Anya, who hadn't said anything thus far, but whose face had taken on a stony and cold expression. The anger, blended with grief and fear, colored her aura in bright red. "He's lost his way, and he needs you both now more than ever," he told her, but still she didn't answer. With a sigh, he shook his head. "He behaved foolishly, Anya."

"And selfishly," she now spat.

"I agree," he said. "And he should have sought your counsel in the beginning. I think that you're right. If he had, maybe Olivia's part in this story could have been averted."

"But?" she snapped.

"But this anger that you – that _both_ of you – have? You have to let it go. What's done is done."

"He's acting like a gigantic ass to everyone," she hissed.

"Yes, he is," Fujin now growled, "and every time he lashes out at one of you or the others, you'll know how much he's hurting inside. Believe me, as mad as you are at him, he is far angrier at himself. I can see it in his soul. This experience has humbled him. It may very well destroy him if we do not find Olivia in one piece."

"So what do you want us to do?" Tomas shot back. "Forget that he's behaving like a _pi_ _č_ _a_?

The Wind God elected to ignore the vulgar curse word leveled at his best friend, and he looked at him. "You know that this is not the man that he is. He would not be your _pr̆ítel_ if it was." Now he looked to Anya. "And he would not be your husband."

"My daughter might die," she croaked, tears welling up in her eyes. "And it's _his_ fault." She started to cry.

"Anya, I know," he said, and he now stroked her face in concern, wiping the tears away. "And he knows it too. What punishment could we inflict on him that is worse than that?" She looked down, and he patted her shoulder as she tried to stifle her sobbing.

"I can never forgive him for the things he's said to my son," the cyber-ninja bitterly argued.

The Wind God sighed. "Yes, you can," he contradicted. He looked from Anya to Tomas. "Now, I need help from the both of you. I know it won't be easy for you because it will require immense strength. But consider this: in the past, Kuai Liang has always been the strong one who has carried all of you, at great personal cost to his own well-being. Tomas, do you remember how he charged into the Lin Kuei Temple under Oniro just to rescue you? Himavat told me the story, and he also told me how my cousin came within a breadth of getting automated just like you. And for no other reason than because he loves you like his brother." When the cyber-ninja winced at the memory, Fujin knew he'd struck the nerve he wanted, so now he looked at Anya. "And when Onaga took you and the other Elementals hostage, I had to physically restrain him to keep him from walking into that trap. I had to tie him to a tree and even still he was screaming for me to let him go save you, even though he knew that's _exactly_ what Onaga was counting on." He sighed. "When _both_ of you were lost, he refused to quit fighting to get you back. Why is it so hard for you two to keep fighting for him now that he's the one who's lost and needs rescued? Is that really how you repay his loyalty?"

Fujin shook his head. "He may have inadvertently created this situation, but he's fallen from grace because of it. But we _need_ the old Sub-Zero back when we go against Reiko and his army, not the broken man we see before us. So I'm asking you both now to be strong for him. Help him stand again. Help him remember that he is the one true Dragon King, the bearer of the Dragon Medallion, and the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei. Remind him what it is that he's fighting for. Of _who_ he's fighting for."

Anya wiped her eyes and looked up at the Wind God. "What do you want us to do?" she asked, and he knew he'd finally gotten through to her.

"Well, the first thing he needs is to sleep, and badly," Fujin told her.

"He has nightmares when he sleeps," she told him. "Horrible nightmares about Olivia dying in his arms. I don't blame him for wanting to stay awake."

"I know, and I wish I knew about the problem earlier," he said. "I could have taken the dreams away. But the damned fool didn't think to ask me for help."

"He's stubborn like that," she mused.

"Do you have any medicines or herbs with you that will put him to sleep?"

The Hydromancer shrugged. "A few," she said. "They're all pain medicines. I brought them in case someone broke a bone or something. But they'll make him sleep for hours."

"He needs it."

"Yeah, but every hour that we're camping is another hour behind we get," she argued. "And that's more distance between us and my daughter."

"I'll carry him while we hike so that less time is lost," Fujin volunteered. She nodded. "Drug him," he commanded. She nodded and then pulled her hiking pack from her shoulders to find the necessary medicines. Tomas, on the other hand, had different plans.

"Hold on, I've got you covered, _Sestra_ ," he now growled, and he stalked forward towards the Cryomancer like a tiger on the hunt. "Kuai Liang!" he roared when he was right on his heels. The Grandmaster swirled around, startled, and his face instantly met Tomas' cybernetic fist. A loud _whap_ echoed through the gully while his head violently snapped backwards, and as Anya and Morgan gasped, Kuai Liang crumpled like a doll to the festering ground. He was unconscious.

The cyber-ninja now looked to the Healer. "That should make it easier to drug him, _můj sladký anděl_ ," he snorted, exhaling hard as he tried to come down from the adrenaline rush.

" _Mo gr_ _á_ , what are you doing?" Kailyn asked him in confusion as Anya rushed to his side.

"Giving ol' Breaking Wind, here, what he wanted," he grunted as the Tetrach went to him and touched his face to find answers to all her questions. He allowed it for a moment but then pulled away and looked at Fujin. " _Now_ I can forgive him," he said. Then he turned and looked down at his best friend's wife. "Give him as much of that medicine as you can without killing him," he barked at her as she filled a syringe full of clear fluid. "I don't want this _pi_ _č_ _a_ waking up again until he's fully rested."

"I planned on it," she nodded before she slid the needle into his bicep.

"What are you doing?" Hanzo now asked the Wind God.

"Staging an intervention," he said, crossing his arms as he watched Anya start to heal her husband's immediate and ugly black eye, but Tomas stopped her.

"No, leave it," he growled. "He deserves it."

Anya frowned but nodded. "Okay," she told him. Then she looked at Fujin, and suddenly, her face looked much older, tired, and sad. "It's your turn. Take away his nightmares," she said. It was almost a plea.

The Wind God nodded at her, and knelt on the other side of Kuai Liang's sleeping body, and pressed his thumb into his third eye while his Champions stood around them and watched with curiosity. He saw the dreams in his mind, all of them tightly coiled around the Cryomancer's soul like a venomous snake that kept biting its victim long after he'd been subdued. Fujin closed his eyes and yanked the darkness from his cousin, and then pulled it into himself where the natural light of his divinity destroyed it in an instant. There would be no more dreams for a while, good or bad, and the Grandmaster could finally rest in peace.

"Let us continue on our way," Fujin now said as he lifted his cousin over his shoulder. He made his way towards the front to lead the way. "We'll walk a little more before stopping for the night."

On they hiked. Several times they were forced to backtrack from gullies and valleys completely blocked by walls of stinking, festering blisters that threatened to pop at the touch so no one could safely climb over them. This place was disgusting, and not even Erron could explain why the land was literally decaying like this. But as the group rounded a towering mound that quivered and glistened with moisture in an obscene way, they ran straight into a squadron of Tarkatans who'd stepped into view before them not ten feet away.

For an instant, the two groups stared at each other in astonishment, the Tarkatans more surprised than the Earthrealm Champions. It might have been funny if it wasn't so short-lived; a mere moment passed before guttural snarls escaped them and echoed off the mounds. Then, they lunged forward, forcing Fujin to throw up his hand and summon a gust of strafing wind to defend his people.

Even as he blasted several Tarkatans back, peeling the skin from their bodies with his powers, a deep horn blasted behind the Earthrealm Champions. And then another answered from somewhere ahead of them. The Wind God shook his head in something between annoyance and concern, but more snarling Tarkatan voices filled his ears, so he had no time to think about it. They were sorely outnumbered.

"Retreat!" he bellowed, and he led them forward at a sprint.

* * *

Tarkatans furiously pursued the rescue party across the desert, so when one of them leapt from behind a putrid dune and swung its arm blade at Alex's head, he wasn't particularly surprised. He leaned backwards in an impossibly graceful arc, letting the sharp weapons pass just above his chin as he continued to run forward. Two more leapt from the shadows after the first, and this time he had to lean forward, the razor edge of one arm blade brushing the back of his neck, shaving his nape and at least a year off his life. He turned long enough to fire his .45s at the beasts, but didn't stop to congratulate himself when their faces imploded.

Then a shimmering bolt plunged into the eye of one of the demonic faces. Fujin, still carrying the Grandmaster over one shoulder but now wielding a golden crossbow with his free hand, joined the Elite's side as both dropped to the rear to cover the others and pounded across the land together, but it felt useless. The Tarkatans sped after them, and they were gaining fast. If they closed the distance even by a fraction, they'd easily catch him or the god by the throat and yank them down, so he pushed himself to run even faster.

Suddenly, from the front of the group, Kenshi unsheathed Sento and threw it into the air as he ran, and as if wielded by unseen hands, it soared behind the Tarkatans. They only had enough time to look back in surprise before the glimmering weapon whipped backward and then forward. The silvery moonlight flashed off the steel. One Tarkatan tumbled forward, rolling over several times before landing in a heap, headless. A second screamed and fell to his knees, tripping those who ran behind him. A third began to stagger as it clawed at its back and wildly snapped his jaws, his muzzle full of razor-sharp teeth gnashing at empty air. In this fashion, Kenshi's katana cut down several of their number.

Things could, perhaps, have probably gone a bit more smoothly – the Earthrealm Champions had to rush into position now that the enemy was swarming around them – but ultimately, it made no difference. The Wind God of Earthrealm, three former competitors of Mortal Kombat, and five more warriors that could have been combatants in the Tournament laid siege to a horde of Tarkatans that outnumbered them nearly eight to one, and the monsters still never stood a chance.

Mystical energies, hollow-point bullets, and tearing shrapnel detonated across Reiko's forces as the Earthrealm Champions fought back. At the edge of the melee, the bat-faced beasts that sought safety away from the enclosed ranks of their comrades instead found themselves ripped apart by Falcata spears. Morgan and Kailyn cut through several Tarkatans as easily as parchment. The former's spear whirled in murderous arcs and impaled anything unfortunate enough to meet the pointy end. Once, the haft of her spear met sharp bone blade with an unexpected thud, and it splintered where it had been chopped, but it didn't break. She and the Tarkatans matched each other step for step, weapons matching stroke for stroke. Kailyn, meanwhile, turned and defended every attack on her young daughter in between the attacks on her, often piercing two or three Tarkatans at a time, stealing nearly every kill, much to the Elite's chagrin. But Morgan said nothing – such was life for the daughter of the Tetrach – as both cut their enemies down or killed them with their powers over water.

Erron Black, who looked completely pissed off, roared loudly. He was a madman as he swung his new naginata, his terrible prize, around. Spit frothed from his mouth, and he hit each Tarkatan with more force than was necessary, gracefully whirling around and clubbing Tarkatans over the head. At times, he leapt onto his enemies' backs with his hunting knife unsheathed, and he ruthlessly stripped away their scalps like an Apache warrior. Even without his guns, he was a force of nature, bathed in blood and sand.

Beside the gunslinger, Smoke shimmered and faded from sight, only to reappear split-seconds later behind his startled opponents. His cybernetic kunai spear flew in all directions, seemingly of its own accord, even though Alex, who was close by, knew it was merely his father's masterful use of the weapon. With blindingly fast speed, he hit Tarkatans with it and yanked them into others, at the same time lobbing smoke bombs at them and launching them high into the air.

Anya helped too, a much more skilled fighter than she had been years ago when she first trekked through Outworld. Though her combat powers were far weaker than her Warrior sister's, she still snapped water whips at oncoming Tarkatans when she wasn't fearlessly punching and kicking at them like the bravest of the Lin Kuei. She stayed close to Blue, who had bared her teeth almost as fiercely as the Tarkatans, and ripped them apart at their throats when her master felled them. Her snowy white maw had long since turned red with blood and gore.

Fujin's crossbow loudly snapped, and then snapped again. His bolts hit every mark, the force of every impact knocking his victims backwards into the other Tarkatans. He had long since dropped the unconscious Grandmaster onto the ground, and his bolts were intermittently shot between mighty gusts of air. His presence, frankly, was almost superfluous – not that he gave any thought to hanging back. He treated the affair more as an exercise than battle; he waded through the thickest of the enemy, lifting miniature cyclones from nothingness with almost monotonous precision, leaving only rubble and dead Tarkatan bodies stripped of skin in their wake.

Alex amused himself by clearing out short ravines like bunkers full of Tarkatans that had managed to survive everything else hurled their way. In leaps and bounds he passed into and out of crevices faster than the beasts inside could respond, and each time he left fewer of them behind. His .45s flashed like strobe lights as he fired round after round, singly and in pairs, and acrid gunsmoke perfumed the air with a growing cloud of sulfur. Eventually, he holstered his weapons on his hips and traded them for his automatic assault shotgun and high explosive rounds, a gift courtesy of General Blade, and began clearing out huge swaths of each gully at once. Dirt and body parts exploded in flashes of light and fire, and thunder from each detonation rocked the battlefield.

Over the noise, Alex heard Scorpion yell "Get over here!" in an inhuman voice beside him. The Elite turned just in time to see the Grandmaster release his kunai spear and watched as it plunged through a Tarkatan's torso as easily as butter. Skillfully, Scorpion yanked the shocked beast backwards, reeling him in like a fish on a hook, and when he was at last in his grip, he drilled a fist directly into its toothy maw. Then he threw him down with all the power he could summon. The Tarkatan landed on his face, and it stunned him. He had just enough time to look over his shoulder and see that a yellow-clad meteor was crushing him into the ground.

Behind the Grandmaster, a red-clad, nearly-naked woman that Alex hadn't seen before clutched two long daggers in her hands and prepared to attack the Shirai Ryu warrior. Alex, who had started to get bored killing the Tarkatans, – it was like shooting fish in a barrel – immediately fired one of his .45s at her. It was too risky, he knew, to use the shotgun with Scorpion in such close proximity to her. His bullets hit her in the side of her abdomen, and unexpectedly, they didn't hurt her. Instead she seemed to absorb them through her skin, greedily sucking in the ammunition like some sort of sponge. The Elite watched in shock as brilliant vermillion veins now pulsated from her skin, slowly progressing upward until her eyes were black as death.

She chuckled, but her laugh was raspy like that of an old woman who'd been a lifelong smoker. "Did you really think that would work on _me_?" she asked. "Shao Kahn _created_ me with magic more powerful and ancient than you will ever live to be, child. Your crude weapons will never kill me."

She then, fast as light, dug one of her knives into her belly at an upward angle and then yanked out a large ball of blood that she promptly hurled at Alex. The impact drenched him in blood and knocked him completely onto his back. His guns tumbled just outside of his grasp upon impact. Then she leapt at him like a gazelle, screaming madly as she crashed into him with knives pointed at his face. Alex caught her before she could stab him, and she laughed maniacally as she fought to push her knives down. For such a thin woman, she was remarkably strong, and he strained to get free of her.

"I know you," she sneered as the knives crept closer to his eyes. "You're the boy that the little brat Cryomancer loved." Alex couldn't help but look at her with a quizzical eyebrow raised. _Loved? As in, past tense? Was Olivia dead?_ She recognized his puzzlement immediately, and laughed. "Oh, don't worry, she lives…for now. She merely traded you for my Lord Reiko."

Alex felt his heart lurch. His face twisted into a furious scowl. "Liar!" he cried, and then tried to throw her off him. She held fast.

"Not three hours ago," she insisted. "She begged him for it."

"I don't believe you," he grunted, still fighting against her. "She would never do that!"

"Oh no? The entire camp heard it as he rode her and brought her to satisfaction," she hissed. "I guess Lord Reiko gave her what you never could."

She laughed again, in a petty and spiteful way that mocked him with all its sincerity, and suddenly, the Elite realized it was true. In his mind's eye, he pictured Olivia disrobing for the powerful General, revealing to him her pale, snowy skin and beautifully proportioned body, and then climbing onto his body and into his waiting embrace. Alex's eyes now shifted away from the woman on top of him and just happened to measure the distance between the tip of her knife and his eyeball. Letting it plunge into his eye and into his brain might just get the images of Olivia and Reiko writhing naked in each other's arms out of his head…Of course, it'd also lobotomize him and turn his mind to scrambled eggs, but was that really such a bad thing?

"You're not going to cry, are you boy?" she teased, pushing harder on his arms. Her brilliant red hair fell over her shoulders. "It's disgraceful when a man cries."

Alex didn't hear her. His heart and stomach and insides had gone completely empty, both hollow and aching; he vaguely mused that _this_ was what someone meant when they said they were heartbroken. Tears began to stream from the corners of his eyes, and his hands began to slide off her wrists.

By this point, Scorpion had defeated the Tarkatans that had swarmed him, and he approached with his katanas in hand. He attacked the woman with a powerful swing that she only barely deflected, and then she came at him with blinding speed and unnatural strength, swinging, slicing, parrying, thrusting with her long daggers. Scorpion dodged and blocked attacks that narrowly missed him both times, and finally, she broke through his defenses. She snap-kicked him in the knee and then thrust her blade through his back when he stumbled from the blow. Agony clearly ripped through his back and stamped itself all over his face, and it was all he could do to bite back a scream.

* * *

Fujin wasn't quite sure what had happened to Alex, who was lying on the ground in a puddle of blood, but as the Earthrealm Champions killed the last of the Tarkatans, the Wind God intervened in their fight before Skarlet killed Hanzo and Alex both. He pulled the surrounding air into his palm, charged it with his power, and thrust it towards Shao Kahn's construct with a ferocious snarl. As expected, a violent gust of wind lifted her off her feet and blew her against a jagged outcropping of something that looked like broken bone.

Ominous wind whistled almost inaudibly around the Wind God, who patiently waited for her, all but daring her to attack him. His dark green cloak swirled, tossed about in a breeze created mostly by the currents of air caressing his body. He didn't even bother striking at the Tarkatans that dashed or flitted past him in fear, choosing to leave them for his Champions, and they, in turn knew better than to draw his attentions. Fujin was greatest threat on the field of battle, if not the most overt. He waited, his pulse quickening – if the vibrant hum of divinity inside his physical being could be called a pulse – for Reiko's top lieutenant to make her move.

And respond she did. From out of the dust and smoke clouds came a bloodcurdling shriek, foretelling the return of the construct herself. Among the most fearsome of Outworld's warriors, Skarlet had been crafted in the Flesh Pits by Shao Kahn himself when he first conquered Edenia, and while she was not as potent as her master or even his adopted son, neither was she to be underestimated. Fujin allowed himself a moment to wish that Kuai Liang stood with him rather than lying unconscious on the ground nearby; if only he'd known that they'd be facing a fight so quickly…

Well, so be it. This could not have been foreseen, and the Wind God needed no ally, even one of his most trusted and valued, to deal with the likes of Skarlet. She stalked towards him with Scorpion's katanas – which she'd stolen from him – poised to strike, the earth beneath her feet bubbling and hissing with each step she took. On either side of her marched two Tarkatans who'd managed to survive thus far, their arm blades jutting from their forearms. She glared up at him, twirling the blades, her face thick with shadow and then they came at him at once.

Their initial pass was scarcely more than a test, but she conducted it well. Their approach, the careful intervals between one strike and the next, meant that their target must always have his back to at least one of them, could never be certain that all six blades would converge at once, or in what order. Even in this first, almost gentle exchange, Fujin found himself hard-pressed to avoid them all. He parried one blade with a gust of wind, ducked beneath a second that might otherwise have chopped into his neck, but he could do nothing for the third save to take the force against his shoulder armor. The blow staggered him – if only briefly – to one knee, but thanks to his armor and his immortality, it drew no blood.

He was standing once more as the enemies circled, and still he waited.

Again they charged, faster this time. _Still_ he waited, one hand coaxing air into his open but rigid palms, the world caught in molasses and slowing to a standstill, as they pounded closer, closer…

Fujin threw his body backwards and thrust air from his hands, propelling himself forward at the same time. Feet first, he slid swiftly between the feet of the nearest Tarkatan. Before the beast could respond to the sudden maneuver, Fujin tensed both knees and straightened once more to his feet. With the flat of both hands, he lifted and threw the creature. Propelled by the Wind God's divine might and his own forward momentum, he tumbled and flailed across the battlefield, fully airborne, until colliding with a deafening, bone-rending crash against the second Tarkatan.

Fujin ducked into a roll back the way he'd come, passing easily beneath Skarlet's blade, and shot upright into a fearsome leap. He landed hard beside the entangled Tarkatans, and from his crouch, he gazed up at the construct, some few paces distant. Though her face remained dark and angry, the Wind God had no difficult reading his enemy's fear. But she lifted Scorpion's katanas, proudly threw back her head, and charged forward. He offered Reiko's Champion his broadest smile as he waited for her to come.

When she was close enough, she leapt into the air to tackle him. Fujin's left arm tensed, swinging it across her path. Gale winds in shimmering waves, something between a heat mirage and a fever dream, left his body. With deceptive speed, it bridged the distance between her and him, and as the howl of his power ceased, hers began. An enormous chunk of flesh simply ripped from her body, letting blood and viscera pour into the open air. The Wind God couldn't help but think, as Skarlet fell over a ravine and out of sight, that the shape of the wound suggested a piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

 _And that's only a fraction of my power_ , he thought to himself. There was no pride in his musings, only facts.

Fujin shook his head and turned around. What Tarkatans survived were fleeing into the desert in all directions, and the rest littered the battlefield. _Literally_ littered the battlefield, as not a single one of them lay in pieces. But his Champions – though a little worse for the wear – all seemed fine, all of them, that is, except for Hanzo and Alex. The Wind God rushed to them both, and the others followed him.

"Alex!" Tomas yelled as he shoved his way past Fujin and skidded on his knees to his oldest son. " _Můj syn_! Where are you hurt?" He cradled the Elite's head in his lap and stroked back his hair, looking for some sort of an injury. But Alex said nothing and just blankly looked at the sky, thin tears streaming from the corners of his eyes.

"Anya!" Fujin called to her while he knelt by Hanzo. "Quickly!"

"I'm fine," the Grandmaster gasped and looked at the Hydromancer Healer. "Help the boy first."

Anya didn't argue, and knelt down to heal him. Kailyn, however, who'd cupped her stepson's cheek in her hands, looked up in alarm and shouted "No, Sister!" at her.

"What's wrong with you?" the nurse yelled when the Tetrach pushed her backwards onto the corrupted ground.

"This is no time for jokes," Tomas hissed at her. "Let her help him!"

But Fujin, who knew Kailyn better than she knew herself, cocked his head in puzzlement at her. She wouldn't bar anyone from healing Alex if there wasn't a good reason. "What's wrong?" he asked her.

"He is not hurt," she told them all. "His _body_ is not hurt," she quickly amended. She looked at her sister. "Heal Hanzo," she ordered.

"No," she argued.

"Heal Hanzo!" she repeated louder, her lavender eyes almost pleading with her to obey, her voice taking on an agitated tone.

"No!" she argued. "Not until you tell me what's going on!"

"By the Elder Gods, just do as I say!" the Tetrach screamed over her and then slapped her. A loud _whap_ echoed through the air, and Anya's hands went to her cheeks as she looked at the woman in wide-eyed shock. Then she shook Alex by the shoulders, slapped him as well, and shouted, "Tell them there is nothing wrong with you! For my sister's sake! Tell them!"

"Kailyn…" Fujin looked at her, shocked by her demonstration. He glanced into her soul and immediately knew what the fuss was about. And she was lying to protect her sister; Skarlet _had_ told the Alex the truth.

"Don't you touch him like that!" Tomas growled as he pushed her back now.

"She's right," Alex finally croaked, gripping his father's arm. "I'm okay. This is that woman's blood, not mine." He wiped his eyes and sat up. "Please help the Grandmaster, Aunt Anya. I'll live." He looked down and his face crumpled as he fought back tears.

The Healer blinked at him and then glared at her older sister. "What did you see in his head?" she demanded to know.

Kailyn shook her head. "A lie," she insisted, though she was the one who was lying. "A terrible lie told to him by Skarlet merely to weaken him. It will only destroy you to know it, as it has crushed Alexander." She inhaled deeply. "Do not touch him. I beg of you, do not touch him."

"If it's a lie, then why can't I know?" she shot back, smarter than Kailyn gave her credit for. "Is it about Olivia?" She looked at Alex. "Is it?"

He looked at her, his face a defeated mess, and then he nodded. He quite resembled a whipped dog. "Yeah," he finally answered.

"Annalise, please," Kailyn quietly begged her. "It was not real. So just let it go."

But she couldn't, as Fujin knew she couldn't. Immediately, she grabbed her nephew's hand and absorbed all of his thoughts and memories into her own. In a fraction of a second, her face twisted into an ugly mask to mirror his, and she burst into tears. Then she shakily got to her feet, walked towards Kuai Liang's motionless body, and started kicking him like a mule as hard as she could. Blue, still full of bloodlust from battle, was more than happy to join her in assaulting the Cryomancer.

Fujin was already heading to stop them both by the time she knelt onto him and started beating in his face, bloodying her knuckles, screaming at him how much she hated him. Blue nipped at his hands and arms during the attack, and she even wrestled and wrung his wrist like a chew toy while her master sobbed. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth, and bruises and knots were already forming on his face when the Wind God wrapped his arms around Anya's waist and lifted her off him. Blue tried to snap at him, but he fearlessly slapped her muzzle away, causing her to whine and retreat with her tail between her legs.

"Let me go!" the nurse shrieked as he held her fast. "It's not a lie! I'm going to kill him! I'M GOING TO KILL HIM!" And then she collapsed into hysterical sobs.

"Anya-"

"I won't help you," she spat through heavy tears as he dragged her back to the others. "I won't. He can DIE for all I care!"

"Calm yourself!" he shouted at her. "Hanzo's bleeding to death. He needs you to save him!" He set her down on the ground and whirled her around to face him. "What's done is done, Annalise," he said as he firmly shook her by the shoulders a couple of times. "But I _need_ you to keep my Champions alive because I _cannot_ afford to waste my powers in Outworld on healing. Not if you want my help getting Olivia back. You know that!"

Her face was beet red, her eyes swollen with tears, but she'd stopped screaming like a deranged lunatic. "I will _not_ help you keep _him_ alive," she growled. "Not anymore." And then she walked towards Hanzo to heal him.

* * *

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, Raiden won't be making an appearance at all, I'm afraid :p**

 **PunkRoseBlitz, you're not _that_ late to the party. I've had a lot of free time on my hands since my surgery, so I've been updating pretty regularly. But I'm always happy to read your reviews :) I'm glad you enjoyed the fight and the dialogue. **

**PinkRedRose2, with Kenshi speaking about Takeda, I wanted everyone to see that he didn't just enjoy leaving his only son. I'm sorry but not sorry you wept a bit over it :) She didn't kick his ass _that_ much, but with her powers back, it definitely gave her a fighting chance! **

**ROCuevas, haha thanks! I think so too :)**

 **DarkAssassin15, enhance your calm, John Spartan! LOL Like I told you, he'll come to realize what a dip he's been and he'll apologize for it. People behave irrationally when they're angry, and everyone deals with grief differently. It'll be fine. Trust me ;)**

 **Esha Napoleon, how pissed off is Reiko gonna be now that Skarlet comes back to him a failure once again?**

 **Reptaliator, I didn't call Firebending Master incompetent. You twisted my words. I said he's been MIA and that even when he helped me, he was only helping me think of the sequence of events, and I did the hard job of weaving that sequence together in a pretty way. Obviously, I'm doing just fine without his help. And no, I'm not going to put Alien and Predator in this story, but thank you for the suggestion. If you want to read an interesting crossover featuring them, go check out Hell-on-Training-Wheel's "Survival of the Fittest." As for Olivia, she _did_ GTFO. She was trying to leave when Reiko attacked them. She couldn't just leave without Takeda. That would've made the act of sleeping with Reiko pointless. **

**Hell-on-Training-Wheels, don't hate me ;) LOL Yeah, methinks Papa Zero is going to make Reiko suffer when he catches him. I'm glad you enjoy my fight scenes, though I think they're boring half the time. Today is no different. I hope you disagree! The kids definitely deserve a medal by the end of this. Takeda has a very rough road ahead of him, but you'll see what I mean. Muah hahahaha!**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, how's your jaw doing? LOL I like your idea of Reiko doing a bolero. You've got to love villains, and especially the way _I_ do them ;) Yeah, poor Rowena. There was a price to pay for their freedom, and unfortunately, it couldn't be _that_ easy where everyone got away unscathed. Truth be told, though, I now kind of wish I hadn't ganked her because she could've run back to Tlachtga and got the Hydromancers to come help. Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20. **


	28. Erron's Story

Erron had never liked the Red Desert.

He'd been born a rapscallion Black with a bad reputation before they'd even wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, but he'd been born to a good momma, right in El Paso in the middle of the desert. Daisy Black had been a schoolteacher, and to this day Erron had no idea what she'd seen in his pa. The man was a horse thief, and an abusive drunk, and when they finally caught him, they strung him up at the edge of the town so that the buzzards that thrived in that inhospitable climate could have a go at him once his neck had snapped. When he died, his momma felt a change of address was in order, so they moved up to Lincoln – Las Placitas del Rio Bonito as the old-timers called it – where he remained a child of the dry, barren wastelands. The land was untamable, just like him.

The desert there in Texas, stretching up through New Mexico, was a garden paradise in contrast to Outworld's red hell, bright and airy, where cacti with red blossoms grew, and wind blew lazily through long grass, and the air was spicy with sage. Even when Daisy passed on from pneumonia when he was sixteen, and he'd found his way to Fort Sumner to work, the parched land somehow still teemed with life.

The Red Desert, though, was a primal place, a thousand miles of sand and rock formations left untouched for eons. It was a place of deep silence and ominous mirages, and it smelled of dirt and decay. No cactus flowers bloomed here; there was no sage and nothing like it. This was a desert of stubborn sand heaped in towering mountains, of sporadic patches of ghost grass, and deadly creatures lingering beneath the surface.

It was those things both real and ethereal that lived below the surface that the gunslinger hated the most about this place, and it was those things that caused him to worry for those damned fool kids he was chasing after. It was a funny predicament for him; he wasn't used to caring or worrying for children as a father might. The time for that had long passed, and he never expected the opportunity for such feelings to show up again in his life. He supposed this strange feeling of concern came about because most of the time, his quarry was unwilling, and he wasn't sent to help them, but to rough them up and arrest or kill them for the Kahn. Pistol-whipping people didn't make for good quality bonding time. But he'd gotten to know those kids, against his better judgment, and they weren't so bad to deal with. He hoped that whatever had befallen Olivia and Takeda since they'd parted ways in the oasis, they'd had enough sense to heed his advice and stay in the daylight where it was safer. He walked, only absently paying attention to the path ahead, and quietly rolled a cigarette for himself with the Outworld tobacco he kept in a pouch on his belt, pondering it for a while.

"I didn't take you for a smoker," Kenshi said as he hiked along on Erron's right.

"Then you did a shit job of reading my mind," he replied as he carefully licked the length of the edge of paper.

"It's bad for you," Morgan now piped in.

She walked to the gunslinger's immediate left, intrigued by him. He almost got the sense that she was attracted to him; she'd stuck close to him since the oasis, frequently staring up at him when she thought he wasn't looking. Wouldn't have been the first time a young girl like her had developed a bit of adoration for the dangerous outlaw. Women seemed to like the bad boy, especially the good-looking ones like Erron, and they behaved as if they could somehow be the one to civilize him. The demigod was sorely mistaken if that was the case. Even Sadie had never really civilized him, merely domesticated him for a spell.

"Smoking could kill you," the Hydromancer added, breaking through his musings.

Erron couldn't contain the snort of laughter as he stuck the cigarette in his mouth anyway. "I'll bear that in mind, kid," he sarcastically said, his voice slightly muffled. He immediately yanked out a box of matches from his leather pouch, withdrew one, and struck it. As he lit his cigarette, the smell of sulfur touched his nose.

"I saw your past inside your mind, what you told Takeda and Olivia," Kenshi now said. "What I don't understand is, if you rode with Billy the Kid, how is it that no one has ever heard of you? A man who can shoot like you do and draw as fast as you can? How come you don't have a reputation back in Earthrealm like he did, or any of those outlaws?"

"Shit," he drawled. "What the hell would I have wanted with a reputation? That's a good way to get yourself killed. Look what happened to most of them." Now he narrowed his kohl-smeared eyes at the mind-reader. "And stay out of my head, Takahashi," he growled. "I don't take kindly to people spying on my thoughts."

"There is much turmoil inside your soul," the other countered. "Shang Tsung deceived you with shadowy promises. I can help you to overcome the pain, just like I helped Hanzo."

"I don't want whatever snake oil you're selling," he said as he flicked his ash.

"You have me mistaken for you," Kenshi said, his voice cool but clearly annoyed. "I help people because it's the right thing to do, not because I get paid to."

"Bull. _Shit_ ," Erron spat. "You're on the Special Forces bankroll. Seems to me you're just like me except you've got a bad haircut and you ain't been laid in years." Then, as an afterthought: "And I ain't saying it again. _Stay out of my head_."

Kenshi started to reply to that, but suddenly, the sound of someone groaning ahead of them reached their ears, and Erron saw that the Cryomancer was waking up on Fujin's shoulder. In the moonlight, the blood smearing his face looked black, curving and dribbling down in a steady trickle as they walked. Kuai Liang was definitely worse for the wear after taking a beating from his wife and his dog. He looked back at the Seidan wolf, who walked faithfully by Anya's side at the rear of the group. His own _dog_ had bit the shit out of him, directed to by the angry little spitfire. He quietly chuckled at how cold that woman had been.

"Fujin?" Kuai Liang mumbled.

"Go back to sleep, Cousin," the Wind God ordered.

"What…happened?" he struggled to say. "Dammit, Fujin, put me down."

Finally, the god exhaled a noticeably annoyed sigh and then obeyed. Then the Grandmaster looked at Tomas, who was hovering on one side of the downtrodden Alex while Kailyn flanked the other. Nobody seemed to know why the boy was suddenly so blue; that wasn't information non-family members were privy to. Erron wasn't even sure that _Tomas_ knew what was wrong.

"Why in the hell did you punch me?" Kuai Liang snarled at his best friend as everyone came to a stop around them. He dabbed the blood off his face with the back of his hand.

The cyber-ninja shrugged. He glanced at the Wind God. "He made me do it," he said.

"I thought you could use a good nap," Fujin said in his defense. "Though, I opted for a more gentle approach. Tomas opted for the quicker method."

"Overkill much?" he said, glaring from the bruises on his hands and arms to his friend. He held up his mauled hand; it was tattered like a well-loved rawhide bone. "Did you sic Blue on me?" he demanded to know.

"That wasn't me," he said, crossing his arms and frowning. "That was your soon-to-be ex-wife." He shrugged and looked to Anya, who was now scowling at him. Beside her, Blue growled and bared her teeth at the Grandmaster.

"Anya?" he asked, confused. "What-"

For the longest time, Erron thought that little wildcat bride of his might say something, and perhaps even lose her composure and attack her old man again. Whatever she'd learned when she'd touched the kid, she wasn't taking it very good. She'd been crying softly to herself ever since she'd healed Hanzo. But finally, she said to Fujin, "Let's keep moving."

"Anya, what's wrong?" Kuai Liang demanded to know as she tried to march past him. He reached out and grabbed her arm, and pulled her back.

"Why don't you ask _Alex_?" she hissed as she yanked her arm free, her eyes like twin rattlesnakes waiting to strike.

So the Grandmaster did just that. He looked to his pupil to find an explanation. "What did I miss, Elite?" he growled, now agitated as well.

"I don't think it's an appropriate conversation for everyone to hear, Grandmaster," the boy said dejectedly. If Erron didn't know any better, he'd have thought the kid looked like he was ready to eat a bullet.

The gunslinger took a long drag of his cigarette, enjoying a taste reminiscent of cherry-vanilla pipe tobacco back home, and looked towards Alex expectantly. "I don't think it's wise for you to be telling him no," he advised the young pistoleer. "The man's awful high-strung right now."

"Stay out of it, Buffalo Bill," the boy shot back, and Erron almost laughed at his pluck. He cracked a faint smile and flicked his ash again.

Kuai Liang seemed unamused. "I'm not going to say it again, Elite."

Once more, Alex balked as if he _couldn't_ obey his Grandmaster, and he rubbed his eyes as if he was about to cry, but this time, his stepmother sighed and said, "While you were unconscious, we battled a Tarkatan horde led by Skarlet. She told Alexander many disturbing things about Olivia."

Now Fujin stepped in and waved his old consort off. He calmly placed his hand on his cousin's shoulder and said, "She told him that Reiko had…" He paused, uncertain how to proceed.

"Had _what_ , Fujin?" the Cryomancer growled, now facing him.

"For some reason or another, Olivia…seduced him," he cautiously spoke.

At the declaration, Hanzo and Kenshi both tensed in equal measure, Morgan gasped and protectively wrapped her arms around her stepbrother, and Kuai Liang's face fell, crushed. Erron, meanwhile, choked on the puff of smoke in his throat at the news. Then he couldn't help but chuckle fondly at that in between violent coughs, suddenly proud of that damn girl.

"You mind telling me why you think this is funny?" the Cryomancer snarled, his face an immediate beet red at the news.

"Sure," he said once he'd stopped with his coughing fit. He promptly flicked the ash from his cigarette. "I was paid to rescue her, unlike all you _fine folk_ who are here because you _care_ about her." He looked at Kenshi, deliberately needling the swordsman. "But now I'm actually beginning to like that young lady myself. When she gets it in her head to go all in, she doesn't just play for keeps, she doubles down. It's an admirable quality," he drawled. "Lord have mercy."

"You're not helping matters," Hanzo quietly reprimanded the outlaw.

"I ain't here to pussyfoot around any of your feelings," he shot back. "If what Fujin says is true, then that kid had her reasons. She didn't much care for Reiko. Might've been stupid of her to roll in the hay with him, but she had her reasons. Mighty courageous, if you ask me."

"You're assuming her reasons were noble," Anya pointed out, her face red and swollen from crying once more.

"Shit, ain't any of you had the pleasure of tangoing with Reiko like I have," he shot back. "You've got to take whatever advantage you've got because you don't get a second chance with him. Believe me, it took guts, whatever she did. She's got sand in her heart, that's for sure."

"Cousin, are you going to be okay?" Fujin asked Kuai Liang, now squeezing the Grandmaster's shoulders to loosen him up. His fists, Erron noted, were clenched tightly at his sides, and wafting with cold fog illuminated by supernatural blue.

"She's only eighteen years old," Kuai Liang growled as they started walking again, with him taking point. Erron, unable to resist, tossed his spent cigarette to the side, grabbed Alex by the collar, and dragged him to the front beside the Cryomancer.

"So?" he challenged the man as he hauled the boy beside him. "I was only _sixteen_ when I started fooling about. You two need to get over yourselves. That girl ain't a helpless baby who needs her pa and boyfriend to protect her from the big bad world. Time you both start seeing that." Then he looked at Alex. "And you need to buck up. Whatever she done, it don't change the fact that she adores you. She spoke fondly of you all the time. Now, you're a man. Time to act like it."

"She talked to you about _him_?" the Grandmaster demanded to know.

"Damn right, she did," he said. " _And_ you. _And_ her momma. When she talked, that was. She wasn't much for conversation, for which I was thankful. I don't need to listen to her life story. I ain't no therapist. Sure as hell wasn't paid to pretend to be one either."

"She hasn't talked much for a long time," he said sadly.

Erron shook his head in disgust. "You two need to act like men and figure this out. If I'm gonna get paid – and I _am_ gonna get paid – then you're gonna need to put aside your bullshit and help me think just like she would. And that ain't gonna happen if your thoughts are muddy."

"Look!" Morgan now cried from behind them as they came across a wide expanse of hard sandstone where several fire pits still glowed orange down deep. As they grew closer, they discovered fresh tracks and the remains of a large camp that had recently departed. Judging by the partially erected tents left behind here and there, the army had left in a hurry. At the far edge of the camp, a large cross had been erected, and a woman's body dangled from the crossbeam, tied by rope at the shoulders and elbows.

When Anya saw the woman, she bolted for her, and the others, fearing a trap, followed with weapons out. The gunslinger didn't like this. His hair prickled on end, wary of the situation, and he wished he had his guns. The woman dangling from the cross seemed dead to Erron – a large knife wound marred her otherwise perfect, large breasts, staining her airy dress with drying blood – but the Healer wrapped her fingers around her hand, barely able to reach it, and cried out, "She's alive!"

"There ain't no way," he scoffed at her. "She's been dead for hours." He pointed to the crusty, black blood staining her clothes, indicating its age. "Look at her skin. It's already mottled."

"She's _alive_ ," Anya insisted.

Kailyn now reached up and touched the woman's hand. She nodded. "Yes, Annalise is right," she said. "She lives. But she is very weak and close to death."

"Someone, please, help me cut her down!" the nurse anxiously cried.

Kenshi immediately held out his hand, his entire arm shrouded in ethereal green light, psychically wrapping the woman's body with light as well, and grabbed Sento with the other. As he had in battle, he threw his sword into the air, but this time, it floated through the air to the back of the cross and swiped the ropes cleanly in two. Had his telekinetic powers not caught her, she would've fallen onto her face. But his powers cradled her in their arms and gently carried her to the ground where Anya immediately went to work healing her.

"How is this possible?" Hanzo asked, giving rise to the question lodged in Erron's throat.

"She is a Hydromancer," Kailyn answered, as if that said everything they needed to know.

"What she means is that our physiology is unique," Anya explained as she closed her eyes and pressed her hands to the knife wound.

"Yes," Kailyn agreed. "We are fast healers, as you know, but the Water Mother gave us another gift that walks hand in hand with our quick healing."

"Rising from the dead?" Erron sarcastically remarked.

"In a manner of speaking," Anya told him, inhaling and opening her eyes as the wound in the woman's chest began to close. "Our bodies go into stasis to allow our healing powers greater energy to save us. Sometimes it works, sometimes not."

"To an onlooker," Fujin now told him and Hanzo, "they look like they're dead. Their pulse is so weak you can't detect it, and they don't seem to be breathing. Only other Hydromancers can tell the difference. What my cousin, Eidotheia, did for them? It's fascinating."

"It's how Anya's mother survived Shang Tsung's assassination attempt," Kuai Liang added. "Catja even woke up in the morgue. That's how certain everyone was that she was dead."

"It's also why it was so hard to kill Rain," the Healer bitterly remarked, glaring at her husband as if it was his fault. Erron knew there was a history there between her and the old traitor, and it wasn't good. "Reiko got this one, though," she sadly said, stroking the woman's long, blood-red tresses now. "She was his slave, his personal Healer."

The woman now rolled her head around slowly, moaning as if she had a hangover, and Erron watched in fascination as her eyes blinked open, revealing the lilac irises that proved her heritage. Only Hydromancers had eyes like that. And then, her eyes exploded wide in surprise and she sat up like a shot.

"Lady Annalise!" she cried.

Anya blinked in astonishment for a moment. "How do you know me?"

"I helped your daughter. I touched her. I saw into her head." She buried her face in the Healer's shoulder. "You have finally returned to Outworld, and to the Hydromancer people."

"Not exactly," she muttered.

"What's your name?" Morgan asked her, leaning on her spear. Close to Erron, the gunslinger couldn't help but notice.

"I am called Rowena."

"Rowena?" Kailyn repeated, her eyes wide with surprise. She stepped forward. "The last time I saw you, you were but a child."

The red-head looked up at her. "Yes, Lady," she said.

"We thought you were dead," the Tetrach said as tears filled her eyes. "How did you come to work for Reiko?" She immediately knelt by the woman's side and gripped her hands. No words exchanged between them, but after several long moments, she rocked back on her heels, satisfied by the answers she got.

"Let us make camp," Fujin now said, clearly uninterested in the story, at least for the moment. "We'll rest here for a few hours. We could all use it."

Erron didn't have much in the way of supplies – what he'd had, he'd given to the kids – so while the others rolled out their beds, he worked on rekindling a dwindling fire in one of the abandoned pits. He poked it with a long stick, stirring up the ash, blowing on it occasionally. Soon, a vibrant rainbow of colors roared to life, licking at the sky with forked tongues.

Morgan poked Alex from behind and muttered something, and then she moved to sit by the fire opposite the gunslinger, who ignored her. The others crowded around them, settling around the fire, and holding their hands out to the warmth. Fujin, the last to join them, pulled water skins from someone's leather pack, found a kettle, and began to prepare tea. The Hydromancer women huddled close together, speaking softly to the newly healed but still-weak Rowena. Erron paid no mind to what the women were saying, but his companions began to stop toasting their hands and openly stared at them. Alex pretended that all of his interest was engaged in helping Hanzo cook supper, but the way he leaned towards the women gave him away. But in spite of everyone's rapt interest, Anya, Kailyn, and Rowena acted as if they were alone.

"No," Rowena said in answer to a question Erron had missed, "she is strong like her grandfather. She will endure the obstacles ahead just as she has endured the ones before."

"Is it true what Skarlet said?" Anya now asked. Erron now glanced at her and saw her face darken with fear. He had always thought the nurse was a lovely woman, but right now, she looked old and tired, and like a million miles from the next closest soul. "Did Olivia…sleep with him?" she whispered in trepidation, as if she didn't really want confirmation that Skarlet spoke the truth.

"Yes," the newcomer told her. Anya fought hard not to cry again, and Kuai Liang's hands began to waft fog once more. "She and the boy had been taken prisoner by Lord Reiko, and he had affixed a cobalt collar around her throat."

Immediately, Kuai Liang jumped up as if ready to fight, but Erron couldn't help but notice that it wasn't anger on the Cryomancer's face so much as fear. He suspected he understood. The man – or so he'd gathered from eavesdropping on conversations – had been having awful nightmares about Olivia's death, brought on by the memory of wearing one of those damned things himself. Hers had definitely weakened her, the gunslinger mused, but she wasn't so weak that she was gonna die from it on its own. Still, nightmares had no logic, a fact he knew all too well.

Oblivious to the Grandmaster's sudden fury, Rowena said, "Lady Olivia quickly figured out that they only way to free herself from the collar and to escape with Takeda was to trick Lord Reiko and steal his keys. With my help, she succeeded." Now she patted Anya's back to comfort her.

"You helped my daughter sleep with that, that-" the Grandmaster now erupted.

"Had I not," Rowena coolly interrupted, "Lord Reiko would still have the children in his possession. She used the only leverage she had to get them free, and it was powerful leverage indeed."

Kuai Liang's fists now glowed blue, still wreathed in cold fog, and he raised them to strike at the woman in retaliation. Erron grabbed his arm above the blue, wondering if the Cryomancer's powers could freeze him but not particularly anxious to find out, and yanked him back down. "Don't be a fool," the outlaw murmured. He eyed the women – all of whom gazed up at him now in surprise – and the look he gave Kuai Liang was sympathetic. "It's beyond us now," he said. "What's done is done. At least it was for a worthy cause."

"You gave her a purple bead for her hair," Kailyn now said to Rowena in an almost accusatory manner.

"I did, Lady," she confessed.

"Only the Elders are allowed to bestow such an honor." She glared at the woman. "You overstepped your bounds."

"The Elders are not here," she said. "And Lady Olivia needed reassurance in order to follow through with her plan. She needed to believe in herself, and to have courage."

"You should've figured out another way," Kuai Liang growled at her, his blue eyes full of fury and despair. In a way, Erron understood the Grandmaster's pervasive need to protect his daughter's purity and honor. He, personally, was proud of Olivia for her resourcefulness, but on the other hand, if she was his daughter, he'd be hopping mad at her actions too. He wouldn't have settled for just shooting Reiko and ending it quickly – no, the General would've earned a slow, torturous death involving a machete, honey, and fire ants.

"There _was_ no other way," Rowena argued. "Had there been, I would not have allowed her to do what she did. I swear it, Cryomancer. But unfortunately, Reiko has few weaknesses. His astonishing ego is one of them. She was clever to exploit it. She played her part well, so well that even I would have believed her had I not touched her and saw her true thoughts. She convinced him she had lost her way, and wanted him to show her a new path that began with him opening up her womanhood. He could not resist her charms. In his mind, all women eventually desire him."

"I think you should stop talking about it now," Erron told her, inwardly cringing at the mental image the woman had painted of the young girl. "It ain't changing a damn thing."

"What do you know of it?" Kuai Liang bitterly spat at him. "She's not your daughter. You don't even have a family to speak of, let alone a daughter who's been kidnapped."

Erron narrowed his eyes, his anger flaring as painful memories rose from the ashes of the past and returned to the forefront of his mind in all their ugly glory. "Don't presume to know me," he shot back. "I've been around plenty. I wasn't always a gun for hire."

"Go to hell," he spat.

"Telling a man to go to hell and making him do it are two very different propositions," he growled, longing to feel his .45s in his grip once more. He itched to teach his ally a lesson in manners. He'd like to see how pissy the man would be when he was bleeding from a bullet hole in his ass. Erron expected Kuai Liang to argue with him some more, and he even reached for the staff he'd strapped to his back, but instead, the Cryomancer scowled, crossed his arms, and quietly sulked as he leaned against a boulder behind him.

"What did you do before?" Morgan now asked him, her face plastered in curiosity.

"Before what?" he barked at her in annoyance as the other women resumed talking in hushed tones.

"You said you weren't always a gun for hire," she said. "What were you before that?"

"A dumb kid, mostly," he spat.

He thought of that boy he used to be after his momma died when he was sixteen and he went to east to Ft. Sumner to find work. God, that felt like eons ago. But somehow, 150 years later, he still remembered what a string bean he'd been, scrawny and underfed, living off the charity of strangers; it wasn't until he started working for Mr. Tunstall on the ranch, slinging bales of hay and roping cows, that he developed the strong, chiseled body he now prided himself on. He had been a clever kid though – Daisy had taught him to read and write, and to think for himself, and hold true to himself no matter what, and he quickly figured out different ways to survive in this cruel, unfair world, even if that meant taking advantage of unsuspecting strangers.

His momma had often said his birthday was lucky because he'd been born on January 1st and he was the first baby of the new year. He didn't think she'd been right about that part, and still didn't, even now; he was willful stubborn and ornery like a horse whose spirit would never break, and he was constantly in trouble with the authorities for fighting anyone willing to take him on. Daisy had been the only one who could rein in his spirit and keep him in check, mainly because she would look at him with sad green eyes just like his own, and he'd feel ashamed for disappointing her so much.

When she unexpectedly passed on, he had only a little money in his pocket, a consolation prize gifted to him by her friends who felt sorry for him, and a couple of pistols he'd inherited from his pa after the man swung for stealing horses. The man had always been a royal ass, especially when he was drunk and wailing on his wife and only son, but occasionally there were good times. He was good at shooting, which helped him in his esteemed career, and he taught his boy too. These lessons were the only thing Erron had loved about his father. For a couple of hours or so during the week, as they shot bottles and cans, and later started hunting game animals, the world and all the problems in it fell a thousand miles away. He got good at shooting guns, and was quick on the draw, both patient and cunning. It pleased his father, this talent. And it was that inborn gift that the eventual outlaw hoped to use to his advantage when he went in search of work; perhaps a cattle rancher could take him on and use his skills.

But the liquor got in the way. A Mescalero Apache that he'd traveled with to Ft. Sumner first introduced him to whiskey, and it had scorched the inside of his throat before it settled in his stomach like a great snake constricting a rabbit. He nearly threw up, but he'd managed to hold it down, and then he quickly found that the pain he'd felt over his momma leaving him all alone washed away like the tides. He liked that feeling of drifting, with no cares in the world. From that day forth, he did anything he could to chug that Tennessee sour mash. Later, after he'd gotten in trouble for killing that loudmouth asshole in the saloon that one day, when John Tunstall took custody of him and gave him the job he so desperately needed, it'd been hard to dry out, and he'd fallen off the wagon several times. Erron totally enjoyed the void, and surrendered himself completely to it, that complete and total absence of pain; it had been a challenge ripping him from its comforting embrace. John fought tooth and nail to save him, and he had for a spell, but in the end, it was ultimately Sadie that had been his salvation.

"How did you get involved with Shang Tsung?" Morgan was now asking, breaking through his painful thoughts. Erron looked at her sharply and she shrugged. "Kenshi said that Shang Tsung deceived you," she elaborated a second later.

"That," he began as he threw a stick on the fire, "is an _ugly_ story."

All eyes were on him, hoping he'd tell the tale. But he merely sighed, not particularly anxious to talk about the most painful epoch in his entire history. He'd sold his soul to the Devil, and when the bill came due, the sorcerer demanded his life in payment. It wasn't much different than how Quan Chi roped in Scorpion. A simple sleight of hand had ruined _his_ entire life as well. At the thought, he sympathetically glanced at Hanzo, and then at Kenshi, who'd been duped in a similar fashion.

"I'd like to hear it," the young Hydromancer pressed.

"Get used to disappointment," he growled. He fumbled for his papers again, and his Outworld tobacco, suddenly needing another cigarette since he couldn't have a drink. He wasn't much of a smoker, but the moment demanded it.

"But-"

"Drop it, Morgan," Tomas told his stepdaughter, and she sighed but obeyed him.

"He followed the money, Morgan, and that tells you everything you need to know about him," Kuai Liang bitterly grumbled, and now Erron bristled at that. That's who he was _now_ , but things had been different back then. _He'd_ been different. And he was Shang Tsung's victim like all the others, and the very worst part was that he had never figured out _why_.

"I had a family once, so contrary to what you might think, I _do_ know what you're going through, asshole," he blurted out in his own defense after he'd lit up his new cigarette. Erron glared at Kuai Liang. Then he cleared his throat, looking into the distance, his mind twisting back in time to 1877 and the cold winter day he met the only woman he'd ever really loved.

"Oh?" the Cryomancer responded, his tone softer now, and curious. "You don't seem the type."

"Neither do you," he shot back. And then he sighed and tiredly rubbed his temples, his cigarette still jutting from between two fingers.

The trip down memory lane brought a stinging pain to the forefront of his mind, and it forced a grimace from him. He suddenly craved the whiskey he'd just been thinking about only moments prior, and his hands now trembled as they had when he was nothing but a falling down drunk. It was amazing how that worked. He'd been sober for nearly twenty years now, but even still, on occasion, the devil in him was irresistibly pulled to taste that liquid fire once more, and to float away somewhere where nothing and nobody mattered.

He only resisted the pull because that's what Sadie would've wanted. As the Earthrealm Champions settled in to rest, and Hanzo and Alex worked on supper – beans and meat, a good campfire meal, Erron mused – he thought about her, forever frozen in his mind not as an angel with a halo encircling her golden hair, but as a wild horse that would never be tamed. She had been born to be free, a rare soul whose infectious energy made him want to run beside her and never stop. She belonged to no one but herself, and Erron, who was yet to find himself, found the missing pieces inside her presence. He'd been lost without her, blindly fumbling around in the hopes that death was heading on swift wings towards him.

He sighed around a tight ball of needles jammed in his throat. "I was seventeen," he grudgingly explained. "I met Sadie working for Mr. Tunstall. She was his neighbor's daughter, and her family eventually became good friends of ours. I was supposed to be out patrolling one day – the Murphy boys, they were stealing our cattle, and we had to stop them, see – but I was three sheets to the wind. Goddamn Charlie snuck me a flask of Kentucky bourbon, and I didn't waste no time drinking it. My horse, Domino – I called him that because he had black fur with white splotches, and he struck me as lucky – got spooked by a coyote and threw me off his back. I broke my ankle when I landed in the snow, but I was feeling much too good to care."

He bitterly chuckled. "Sadie found me like that, unconscious and wounded in the snow, with Domino grazing the pasture nearby. She took us both home, but not after she gave me hell for drinking on the job." Erron sucked down more of his cigarette. "It wasn't hard to fall in love with her, and I did. Hard." he confessed. "For some damn fool reason, her father actually liked me and gave me his blessing to marry her a year later."

"But that's good, isn't it?" Alex asked, clearly thinking about his own love for Olivia. "That her dad liked you and said it was okay for you to marry her?" He tentatively looked at Kuai Liang, who didn't seem to notice.

Erron shook his head. Perhaps if Old Man Hansen had shooed him away, things would've turned out very different for her. For the better, he assumed. "Mr. Tunstall died a few weeks after we said our vows," he continued, trying to force the other memories back. "He stood beside me in the little church at the edge of town, as if he was my own pa. He threw us a huge party at his ranch, and Sadie and I danced to "Silver Threads Among the Gold." He even gave me and her a big chunk of 'startin' out money, and I put it in savings for a rainy day. He was a damn good man. Didn't deserve to go out the way he did."

He winced at the memory of watching the Dolan gang shoot up the man he'd grown to love as a father, the one who gave him a chance, the one who believed the troubled orphan could actually make something of himself.

"We were all distraught by his untimely death," he continued, "but Billy and I took it the worst. He'd literally saved our necks from the hangman's noose. So when Billy knocked on my door and wanted me to join the Regulators in hunting down John's murderers, I couldn't say no. I wasn't after revenge, though. No, I sought a reckoning."

"And you got it," Kenshi deduced.

Erron solemnly nodded. "I killed more of those goddamn Murphy men than I can remember, but they gave most of the credit to Billy. It didn't matter much to me who killed them as long as I knew they were six feet under where they belonged. I stayed with the Regulators until that July when I got shot at the Battle of Lincoln and they left me for dead. Goddamn, chicken-shit cowards." He inhaled a drag from his cigarette, his cheeks flushing hot with remembered fury. "You should have seen Sadie. She was fit to be tied." He chuckled softly at that. "She was already pregnant, and none too happy about her husband getting gut shot and left to bleed to death in the alley behind John's store. She wanted to hunt Billy down and shoot him herself. I had just been shot, and yet I had to physically restrain that woman to keep her from following through."

"Why did she blame Billy?" Morgan asked, completely engrossed in his story.

"He gave the order to retreat," he said. Erron now stuck his cigarette in his mouth to hold it in place while he lifted his sleeveless shirt. In the firelight, his allies could see the ugly scar ripping across his sculpted belly from where the doctor had to cut the bullet out. It was nothing short of a miracle that he survived, he knew. His disfigurement was a small price to pay, and that scar told one of his most painful stories.

"The doctor that fixed me up brought me home, and from that moment on, I was done with their war," he declared. "It was a useless cause anyway. John wanted better from us, especially Billy." He angrily shook his head and sighed. "I worked an honest living after that, for Sadie's father as his ranch foreman. Made a decent enough living, and her family helped us build our own cottage on the edge of his property. In September that year, my son, E.J. was born, and two years later, my little Daisy Mae was born too."

"E.J.?" Hanzo repeated.

"Erron Junior," he wistfully scoffed. "The boy was fixing to wind up like me, if you could imagine that. He could shoot a rabbit between the eyes at a hundred yards by the time he was two. I taught that boy right."

Unbeknownst to him, he suddenly glowed with pride, even though he knew the hundred yards was more like twenty yards, and Erron had helped his rambunctious son hold up the heavy rifle and pull the trigger. The bright, blond-haired kid had always been tickled to accompany him on little hunting trips here and there, always bringing the toy guns that he'd whittled for him, trying to twirl them just like his daddy. Before the boy was born, the gunslinger didn't think he would have cared much for a kid tagging along on a hunting trip, but truthfully, he enjoyed the little tyke's company. He'd helped him bag more than one rabbit in their time together.

"It's hard enough imagining _one_ of you roaming the world," Kenshi teased.

"Same could be said for you," he coolly retorted, then took a drag of his cigarette. Calmly, he exhaled the cloud of smoke. "Then again, I don't think _your_ boy has much in common with you at all. Called you a deadbeat quite a lot. Mine never would've said that about me. Was there when mine was born, and I never left." He winked at the blind man, deliberately needling him again, and it worked. Kenshi set his jaw so hard that he might've started chewing up nails had there been any around.

"If you had a wife that you loved and children that you cared about, then I don't understand why you'd give all that up to go into business with Shang Tsung," Anya now spoke.

Now Erron winced, his mildly amused smile vanishing, and this time he cleared his throat. "One day in June, Billy showed up on my doorstep and begged for shelter," he explained. "He was a household name by 1881, and gunslingers from all over the country were looking to get a piece of him and make a name for themselves. Pat especially. He was closing in on him, and fast, and Billy knew it too. He begged my forgiveness and said I was the only friend left that he could trust. So against my better judgment, I gave him quarter in my house for the night.

"I had to leave early the next morning to go catch some cattle that had wandered off, and he was still sleeping. I didn't even know he followed me out to the southern ridge." He shook his head, fighting his own tears now. "He accused me of betraying _him_ for getting married and abandoning the Regulators." He scoffed, angrily now. "I thought he was just gonna shoot me because that was his way, so you can imagine my surprise when he roped me like a cow, and dragged me behind his horse for a half a mile. I was half-dead when my father-in-law found me in the prairie. By then, it was already too late. Billy had already gone back and raped and shot Sadie, and shot both my kids. They were still just babies..." he trailed off.

Erron now wiped his eyes, wishing he hadn't dredged this shit up, wondering why he had in the first place. Then he thought of Olivia and Takeda out there in the wilderness by themselves, and he remembered. They'd become something more of a payday to him, he suddenly realized. He couldn't save his own kids years ago, but maybe now, he could save these kids. He coughed after he sucked down his deepest drag on the cigarette yet.

"Oh, my God, Erron," Anya said, looking at him with such pity that he could hardly stand it. Everyone's expression, for that matter, took an empathetic turn that he wasn't sure he appreciated. He'd seen that look before, from his in-laws and all the good people of Lincoln. He hated them all for it.

"I tried to put a bullet in my brain," he confessed after a long, uncomfortable pause. "But my in-laws tied me up and stopped me. I was badly wounded from what Billy had done, so they fetched a Chinaman healer since a proper doctor was unavailable to attend me. You see, the Murphy boys threatened the townsfolk not to help any of the Regulators, or they'd pay for it, and they meant it. So the healer they brought to me was called Shang Tsung."

"Oh, man," Alex shook his head, suspecting where this was going.

"Yeah," he scoffed, shaking his head and looking down at the glowing red embers at the tip of his cigarette. "After he magically healed me, and convinced me he could make good on his word, he offered me the chance for revenge on all who'd wronged me," Erron continued. "If I'd been in my right mind at the time, I'm not sure I would've taken the bait. But as it was, I wanted blood. Gallons of it." He paused, and then looked around at everyone before settling his sights on Kuai Liang. " _They were just babies, dammit!_ " He glowered at the man. "You have your problems with your daughter, but at least you got to see her grow into a woman. _Mine_ hadn't even made it to her first birthday," he growled, then choked.

The Cryomancer nodded his head solemnly. "You're right," he said gently. "I was out of line. I'm sorry, Erron."

"I would've burned down the world had that happened to me," Fujin now said sympathetically. Then he looked at his own daughter with a sad smile, reached over, and squeezed her hand.

Erron cleared his throat again, the persistent need for a swig of whiskey even stronger now. "Shang Tsung told me he could give me the power to destroy my enemies once and for all, but in order to do that, I had to meet with Pat Garrett and listen to what he had to say. So I agreed to the meeting, at which point Pat asked me to kill the Kid for him."

"Why would Shang Tsung care if you killed Billy the Kid or not?" Alex now asked.

"I'm getting to that part," he muttered. "Pat kindly reminded me that even though I'd gone straight, I was still technically an outlaw too, and that he could have me strung up for my role in the Lincoln Wars. He offered me clemency in exchange for killing Billy and then giving him the credit. But he didn't have to offer me nothing," he growled. "After what that bastard had done, I would've gladly done it for free a thousand times over, even if it meant I'd swing for it.

"So I tracked Billy back to Ft. Sumner," he continued. "We was both well-liked there, and they knew I was his friend, so no one alerted him. Story might've ended up different if he'd known I was there." Erron smashed his cigarette butt into the desert sand beside him. "I cornered him in our old pal, Pete's, butcher shop. Confronted him for what he'd done. He swore up and down that he didn't do it, that he hadn't even been to my house since that night he came and asked me to join him and the Regulators. I was so blinded by rage, I didn't believe a damn word he said." The gunslinger furiously shook his head. "He begged for his life, but I had no mercy to give. So I shot him. Right through the face. It was a better death than he gave to my family."

"This man – he did not murder your family, did he?" Hanzo now spoke.

Erron slowly shook his head no. "Shang Tsung came back after Billy was dead and Pat had made up this grand story about how he and his men ambushed him. I demanded what he'd promised me. I had fulfilled my part of the bargain. He told me that it was already done. He said that Billy's death was the last step in a spell to grant me unnatural long life and accelerated healing, and he said it _had_ to be Billy. He was, for all intents and purposes, my brother. The spell was very powerful, he told me, and so it demanded a high price to be paid by the blood of someone I held dear.

"There was nothing left for me in Lincoln after that…hell, in Earthrealm period. Shang Tsung knew as much, and he offered me a job in Shao Kahn's service as his enforcer. The Emperor paid me well for a long time, and in Outworld, I wasn't an outlaw anymore. I was a man with power. Respect."

He neglected to tell them that after he killed Billy, he dove headfirst back into the bottle, and became a highly functioning alcoholic until he went into Kotal Kahn's service 130 years later. The Kahn – unlike his predecessor – demanded the utmost self-discipline from his enforcers, and that extended to their physical health. He had no tolerance for the gunslinger's self-abuse, and he, Ermac, Ferra, and Torr took turns babysitting him around the clock and beating him into sobriety.

Finally, Kotal sat down with him and reminded him that he was a valiant warrior, and that regardless of what Shang Tsung had done to him, it was _his_ choice as to what to do with the gift of long life. But what, he asked, would Sadie have wanted? The question jarred Erron from the alcoholic haze he'd been living in since she died. The Kahn had reached him – no, _she_ had reached him, yet again, from beyond the grave. That instant, he gave the drinking up for good. It had been a rough few months for his fellow enforcers as he'd dried out – he'd been a grouchy fucker, he conceded – but in the end, he beat his own demons with the memory of his beloved family and the help of the Kahn.

"Respect is not the same as fear," Kailyn now hissed. "And that is all you have cultivated since you have been here."

"It's all the same to me," he said, suddenly feeling very old and very tired.

"How did you find out that Shang Tsung deceived you?" Kenshi asked.

Erron sighed. "It wasn't until years later, when Shang Tsung banded together with Quan Chi to form their so-called Deadly Alliance." He bitterly chuckled at the memory. "Rain was none too happy about having to play nice with the Netherrealm scumbags, so he dropped that bomb on me. Told me that Shang Tsung had worn Billy's face all those years ago so that I'd _want_ to kill him, and that my friend, who I shot down in cold blood, was innocent of everything I had accused him of.

"Furious, I went to Kotal, who was Shao Kahn's General at the time. He was second only to Reiko, you see, and I knew he'd have some interesting ideas about how I could blow the Sorcerer's face right off. He told me to have patience, that I would have justice. But, he lied. Onaga killed the bastard before I got my shot." He scoffed and looked at Kenshi. "Then he came back from the dead and I _still_ didn't get my chance."

"He had plenty of people who wanted him dead," the blind swordsman replied. "There was a line just to kick his ass."

"You lost your _sight_ ," Erron snarled at him. "But I lost my _wife_ , my _children_. And that bastard cursed me with life. I should've died several times over by now, and yet I never do. So I don't even know how long I can expect to walk this earth before his spell runs out. How long do I have to wait to see them again? _If_ I get to see them again." He threw another stick on the fire. "Further proof of a godless universe." At the declaration, Fujin cleared his throat. The gunslinger narrowed his eyes and glared at the god. "Like I said, a godless universe," he reiterated, letting him know in no uncertain terms what he thought about him.

"Where were the children headed, Rowena?" Kailyn now asked, blessedly changing the subject.

"Directly towards the mountains," she said. "But Reiko attacked us as they were leaving. He threw a knife into me, and I thought I was dead. But I stayed conscious long enough to see him gravely wound Takeda as well."

"Did they even get away?" Kuai Liang now demanded to know.

"I cannot say," she said. "Lady Olivia had freed herself from her collar, and was fighting back. But I lost consciousness during their battle. I do not know who came out the victor."

Erron sighed and rubbed his eyes. He knew the odds of Olivia defeating Reiko alone in hand-to-hand combat were next to none, even if she _was_ a powerful Cryomancer. And he wouldn't make the same mistake twice; the kids would be well-guarded now, at all times. And what was worse, it suddenly occurred to him, was that they were coming to the part of desert where dangerous monsters lurked. He cursed under his breath and then raked his fingers through his longish hair.

"We have to assume that Reiko has them again," he declared. "And time is of the essence."

* * *

 **Author's Note: I would have put this at the top, but I didn't want to spoil stuff for you guys. So I wanted to bring Rowena back because I needed her to do something down the road, but how? And then it occurred to me, I had the answer built in from my last story, _The Curse of the Dragon Medallion_. Basically, if you haven't read it, it's exactly like it was explained above. Hydromancers, when they've been gravely wounded, go into a stasis that gives every last bit of energy to their healing powers. To the unknowing onlooker, they show all the signs of death. Sometimes, their healing powers can save them, but not always. It was this trait that kept Rain alive, much to my readers' chagrin. They really hated him. They were all anxious for me to have someone gank him permanently. In short, this wasn't just a convenient answer to solve my problem. I had built this in a couple of years ago. So, yeah. Anyway, without further ado...**

 **Esha Napoleon, yeah, he's a smidge upset, methinks ;)**

 **Lightrunner, thank you, and very true. She'll recover eventually, I think. But cut her some slack. She's having a rough couple of weeks!**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, I'm pretty sure I've said before that because of the way I wrote _The Curse of the Dragon Medallion_ , and because I didn't anticipate the events of MKX, my plot is going to deviate somewhat from canon. In my mind, the events of the comics start _after_ this story ends. Plus, again, with a few alterations to that plot. **

**Reptaliator, I understood perfectly well what you meant. And I think they did. They were trying to get away. Like, I don't follow your train of thought there. The way you make it sound, it's like they were having a tea party while Reiko recovered. No, it was only a couple of minutes from the time she left his tent to the time he attacked.**

 **DarkAssassin15, well, how'd _this_ chapter play with your emotions? **

**PinkRedRose2, he's not gonna be too happy, I think. Yeah, this family has been through a lot, that's for sure. To answer your question, in my head canon, Daegon is working from the shadows. In the events _after_ this story, Kenshi will figure out that he's the one pulling Mavado's strings. **

**John Lord, your review bewilders me for a few reasons. 1) You've hung in there and read this story for 28 chapters now, and judging by your review, my depiction of Sub-Zero and Anya bothers you a lot, but you've only waited until now to say something. Why suffer that long through something that clearly makes you unhappy? 2) It's obvious you've only read _Ascension_ , but had you read my previous three stories, you'd know that I deliberately painted Kuai Liang with an unusually fiery temper. I did that so that my readers could differentiate between him and his brother and father, but also to highlight him as different from the rest of the Cryomancers who are, by nature, cold and cruel in my version of things. Personally, the uncaring, cold guy is not how I see the hero that, canonically speaking, left the Lin Kuei Temple and went on a quest to save Smoke and avenge the original Sub-Zero, and then later founded a new Lin Kuei that fought on behalf of Earthrealm rather than against it. Also, I specifically had several characters through the course of my trilogy muse on how unusually emotional he is given his heritage, and this quality was even considered a point of weakness by his old Grandmaster. It was why he, in my head canon, was bullied by his fellow Lin Kuei until he rebelled and left them, but it's also what helped him survive when everyone wanted him dead. Please read those three stories for further clarification. 3) I find your criticism of Anya sexist because it implies that women have to be stoic, kick-ass warriors at all times in order to be viewed as strong. Ironically, if I'd have painted her like that, you'd probably be criticizing me for creating a Mary Sue. This is just as odious to me as saying that strong men can never cry. That was actually something I struggled with while writing _this_ chapter. I hate that double standard. HATE. IT. Furthermore, as a mother myself, I think that yeah, she's having a few meltdowns, but her _daughter_ was kidnapped, dragged to Outworld, forced to kill someone, forced to sleep with someone, and all because her father is having issues about letting go. So yeah, I think Anya's meltdowns are understandable. I'd probably behave the same way, and I could kick just about any guy's ass that I know. Kung Fu Queen, remember? Look, reacting like a real life caring mother does not make her weak.**

 **ROCuevas, I certainly hope so!**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, how's that jaw doing now? LOL Oh, yeah, an awkward discussion indeed. I have an idea about that which is probably going to piss a lot of people off, so I'm still debating about whether or not to actually do it. So we're all gonna be surprised on that front. Yeah, sometimes I have to throw in some awww moments to get you in the feels. It balances out the gut-wrenching torture I usually put you all through ;)**


	29. On Their Own

**Author's Note: This is somewhat of a filler chapter that segues into more exciting ones. I hope it's not too boring. And i** **n case I don't update again beforehand, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays :)**

* * *

Flies circled Takeda slowly as their wings buzzed, a low hum that filled Olivia with fear. The sun above was only barely rising above the eastern horizon, but already it was ruthless. Blinding rays shone into the teenagers' eyes, promising another day of scorching, uncomfortable heat. It wasn't long before it began shimmering in waves off the low hills. A thin rivulet of sweat trickled from the Cryomancer's forehead, around her swollen eye socket, and onto her sliced breast where Reiko's scythe had cut her deeply the night before. It stung, and badly. The only sounds she heard were the steady stomp of the _iwanas_ webbed feet on sand – they had crossed from the festering region hours ago, blessedly enough – and the faint jingle of shells and beads in her hair.

And of course, there were the flies.

They were large and loud like bumblebees, and seemingly a close cousin of Earthrealm's horseflies. At least, that was the closest comparison Olivia could think of; the occasional few strayed from the growing swarm around Takeda and found her, and when they did, they bit her so hard they drew blood. She started freezing them in a deadly cloud of fog and ice whenever they got too close. Takeda, however, hated them more than she did. Whenever one came near him, his free hand – his other was tightly gripping his belly where Reiko stabbed him – would shoot out like a striking snake and close around it. And then his fingers would tighten into a white-knuckled fist, and when they'd open again, they'd be smeared with a brown stain of bug guts.

Eventually, the swarm grew closer and closer to him, and he stopped fighting them. His dull eyes were fixed on the distant mountains and the rolling hills of sand that stretched ahead of him. Beneath his shirt, he clutched an ice pack to his skin to slow the oozing blood and reduce the swelling in his abdomen. She made these packs for him often, pressing her hand to his belly so that the ice would conform to the shape of his body. At first, he had resisted because the cold burned and stung, and the packs eventually soaked him as they melted, so he'd angrily cursed her abilities as a Cryomancer. But as the night turned to day and the heat began to return before sunrise, he stopped arguing with her about it.

Every mile that they traveled Olivia noticed one more line of pain etched into Takeda's face. And now, he'd gone completely silent. Inwardly, she began to freak out. Since daylight had dawned, he hadn't said a single word to her, not to bitch at her, not to complain, not to ask for water. When she spoke to him, she didn't receive a worded answer, only a grunt, and not even that much since sunrise.

One of the flies landed on his shoulder. Another circled and landed on his hair but crept downward to his mouth. Takeda swayed on the saddle as if he was drunk as his _iwana_ kept walking beside Olivia's at a steady pace. The Cryomancer, worried, pressed her heels into the beast's side and rode closer to her classmate.

"Takeda?" she asked. "Are you okay? Do you need to stop?"

He didn't seem to hear her. Another fly landed on his cheek and bit him in the crease beside his nose. A small trickle of blood sprang from the wound and trickled into his mouth. "Hey, Takeda!" she gasped, now on the verge of full panic mode. Anxiously, she waved her hand in front of his face, blasting him with cool air in the hopes to snap him out of it and drive away the annoying little insects. The flies scattered, but Takeda reeled in his saddle, went limp, and fell like a lump into a sand dune.

"Takeda!" she yelped as she reined her _iwana_ to a stop and then leapt off her saddle to help him.

The boy cried out in pain as Olivia knelt beside him. His breath rattled harshly in his throat, and he looked at her as if she were a stranger. "Momma," he gasped as tears filled his eyes. At the declaration, tears filled her eyes as well. She thought of _her_ mother, and wished, for the umpteenth time since Reiko had kidnapped them, that she was there to help her. Only this time, she needed her mother to save her classmate and not her.

She lifted his shirt and saw that the wound had scabbed around the edges, bubbling fresh blood over crusty black borders. Red lines of infection were already streaking through his skin in thin tendrils. And worst of all, his skin burned to the touch. He had a fever now, she knew. Trembling, her eyes full of new tears, she turned away from him and winced at thoughts of the inevitable. Out here, without access to a Healer or antibiotics, he would die. Once more, she couldn't believe Reiko did that to the boy he claimed was the leverage he needed.

 _You have to clean him and get his fever down like you did for Erron_ , the Cryomancer heard her mother say in her head, and she knew she was right. He was like a bonfire in a human hide.

Quickly, she scrambled to her feet and summoned her powers around her. Then, thinking of her father and of the igloos he'd spent hours teaching her to make in the wastelands of Arctika, she conjured ice with both hands and willed its unyielding substance into the shape she desired. Soon, a large hollow mound of thick ice formed beneath a jagged outcropping of yellow rock whose shadow gave some relief from the sun. _Even so, it won't last long in this stifling heat_ , she reminded herself as she helped Takeda to his feet and then hobbled into the shelter she'd made for him. She'd have to frequently reform the structure to keep it from melting and collapsing on them completely.

Once safely inside, Olivia covered the ground with more ice and then stretched Takeda out, flat on his back. "Momma," he muttered again, and then began gasping the same phrase in Thai over and over again. It seemed to be the only thing he was capable of saying. If she had to take a guess as to what he was repeating, she'd wager that he was still crying out for his mother in his native tongue.

"I'm here, Takeda," she reassured him as she gripped his hand, choking back her persistent and annoying need to sob in fear and worry for him. _There is no time for such emotions right now_ , her father's voice reminded her.

The Cryomancer heeded his advice and calmly formed a thin tomb of ice around him up to his neck to cool his fever. He was still moaning, his voice weak and pathetic, when she scrambled from the igloo to rifle through the supplies that Rowena gave to them to find anything of use, and he was still moaning when she returned with clean clothes, clean squares of silk, a bar of soap, and a few canteens full of water. The ice she'd formed only a few minutes prior was already melting and breaking in spots. She quietly stroked his hair as it melted away completely, humming a Hydromancer lullaby her Aunt Kailyn had taught her when she was a child, and was relieved when she noticed that her efforts seemed to work. His fever seemed less severe, though he was still in and out of consciousness.

After she helped him sit up enough to chug down half a canteen of water, Olivia formed a kori knife to cut away all of his filthy, travel-stained clothes, even his underwear, which was nasty too. She then bathed him as best she could with only one good hand and a limited supply of water and soap. She scrubbed the dirt and the dust from his entire body, gently cleaned his face with one of the pieces of silk, soaped his longish black hair and rinsed it with water, then combed out the knots and tangles until it shone like onyx. She didn't touch his genitals and tried hard not to look at them directly as she poured the water on them to simply rinse them off. Around his stomach she took greater care because he hissed and groaned in great pain as she wiped the skin up to the very edges of the wound. When she finished cleaning up the injury, she formed a fresh ice pack on top of it and watched in satisfaction as it seemed to comfort him. She left him unclothed to keep him cool, save for the clean pieces of silk that she draped over his groin for modesty.

It was well past noon when she finished, and she was exhausted. She tied the _iwanas_ to a rock formation like a pillar, and then she ate a bit, but it was all she could do to nibble at a fig-like fruit and drink some water. What she really wanted to do was sleep, but she was too frightened to shut her eyes. If she did, he might die. He might die and she could've done something to stop it. So no, she couldn't sleep just yet. She owed her wakefulness to Takeda, for letting him believe he'd been betrayed when Reiko took her in his tent, if for nothing else.

Olivia had been so worried about Takeda since they'd escaped Reiko's camp that she'd hardly noticed her own pain, but now that he was resting easier and his breathing seemed to improve, the aches and pains came screeching back to her like a vicious slap in the face. Wearily, she looked down at her right hand and saw that an ugly black and purple bruise of her own now spread across a tight knot that had enveloped her knuckles. God, it had felt good to punch Reiko so hard, but it didn't feel that great right now. She tried to flex her hand, but it hurt too badly to move, and she suspected she had broken at least one of the tiny bones. Her eye was swollen as well, and it probably matched the color of her hand and the split in her bottom lip.

With eyelids as heavy as molten lead, she formed an ice pack for herself and pressed it to her hand. Without even realizing she did it, she dozed off sitting completely upright by Takeda, and wings immediately swept her into dreams of an ice blue dragon carrying her away from Outworld. It was a nice dream, and she clung to the beast's back as they drifted through clouds for a while. But a sudden hand on her arm jerked her awake, and she started, looking at her classmate. The boy was looking at her with a weak but wakeful expression.

"What happened?" he whispered, and then he coughed and cleared his throat. His eyes were wobbly in their sockets, but he managed to steady them long enough to look around him. "Where are we?"

"You passed out and fell off your _iwana_ ," she told him. "You're very sick. I made this igloo to shelter us from the sun and keep you cool."

Takeda inhaled deeply and then looked down at his body. Alarmed by his nakedness, he was suddenly wide awake and staring at her with his most accusatory expression. "Why am I naked?" he hissed. He instantly crossed his hands over his groin.

"Again, because you're running a high fever," she shot back, now mildly annoyed. "And I had to bathe you because you were dirty and it was infecting the wound."

He thought about that for a long moment before he finally said, in a lighter tone, "You know, Olivia, if you wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was ask."

She rolled her eyes. "Dream on," she replied before she rubbed her temples tiredly. She felt a headache coming on, but from stress or heatstroke, she couldn't be certain.

"Yeah, you're right," he said. His voice remained steady but quiet and labored the entire time. "I don't want you to see me naked even if you ask permission first. I hate you."

"I hate you too," she spat, but she smiled at the joke.

Now more relaxed, Takeda folded his fingers across his chest and looked up. "How long have we been here?" he asked.

"Half the day, I think," she said, shrugging. They'd wasted far too time, she knew. But it couldn't be helped.

"Reiko's going to catch us again," he mumbled. "And I'm going to go out on a limb and say he won't sleep with you and give you the opportunity to escape this time."

"No, he won't catch us again because I killed him. Again. Now _Skarlet_ on the other hand…" She sighed as she leaned onto her elbows. A drop of water from the ceiling dripped on her in a splatter, first one, then two, then a steady trickle. Calmly, she placed her ice-charged palm onto the curved surface of the igloo and commanded it to reinforce the ice with a new layer. It obeyed, and the air around them immediately grew cold once more.

"It's so cool how you do that," he said, examining her handiwork.

Olivia bitterly chuckled. "No pun intended, I'm sure," she said, and he snickered.

"By the way, I didn't tell you thanks," he said.

"For what?" she asked.

"Doing what you did to get us out of there," he said, wincing at the memory. "I shouldn't have said what I did."

"I don't want to talk about it," she said, shooting upright and pulling her arms and legs tightly to her.

"No, I know," he said, holding up his hands deferentially to her. "I just wanted to say thanks. And thanks for helping me now. And that's all I'm going to say."

The Cryomancer suspiciously eyeballed him. "I don't deserve thanks," she finally told him. "It was despicable, but I couldn't think of any other way. Alex is going to hate me if he finds out, and so are my parents. So please, don't thank me."

Takeda merely nodded. Then he said, "Why are you even here?"

She raised a quizzical eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"If you hadn't come to the Shirai Ryu, you wouldn't be stuck in this mess. So why did you come to the Shirai Ryu? You've never told me the whole story."

Olivia cleared her throat and then offered a fig to him. He turned it down so she bit into it herself. "My father decided that I needed more discipline than he could give," she finally said. "He thought Grandmaster Hasashi could be a good teacher to me. So in the middle of what I thought would be my Rite of Ascension, he sprang it on me that I wouldn't be testing."

He thoughtfully nodded. "What is this Rite of Ascension anyway?"

"It's when the Lin Kuei stops looking at us like we're children and recognizes us as fully-grown, adult warriors." She bitterly chuffed. "But my father, in all his glorious wisdom, decided I wasn't ready."

"Ready for what?"

"To test. To prove that I know what I'm doing and can handle myself."

"And then what happens once you pass?"

She shrugged. "We get our battle uniform and then my father tells us what our job in the Temple will be," she explained. "We also get the Lin Kuei symbol tattooed just above our wrists. And in front of the Temple, we choose our code-names."

"What was your name going to be if he'd have let you test?" he wheezed like an old man.

Olivia cleared her throat. "I didn't have one picked yet," she confessed.

He began coughing as she spoke, and when he answered her, his face had long since turned beet red. "Well, how does one go about choosing their code-name?" he asked, weakly lifting the canteen to his mouth with her help. "Are there restrictions or anything?"

Again, the Cryomancer shrugged. "People usually choose their name based on what they can do or on their interests," she told him. "My father's code-name, Sub-Zero, wasn't his original name. It was Tundra. My _uncle_ was named Sub-Zero, and he named himself after an ancestor with the same code-name. But my dad took that name too when Grandmaster Hasashi, as Scorpion, killed my uncle and my dad wanted to keep his memory alive, especially when my uncle became an evil wraith who worked for Quan Chi. And then my uncle was resurrected by Raiden and-" She cut herself off when she noticed that Takeda was giving her a funny look. "My family history is a bit weird," she muttered, suddenly embarrassed by it.

Takeda smiled. "So is mine," he said.

"Anyway," she said, clearing her throat, "my other uncle calls himself Smoke because he has powers to create or become smoke. Alex picked Caliber because he's really good with guns. My best friend, Morgan – she's also my cousin – picked Hydro after our grandfather, Halsey. He was a great Hydromancer warrior for Outworld _and_ the Lin Kuei, hence the 'Hydro' part." She noticed Takeda blinking again and said, "Okay, my family history is really weird."

"So why don't you do like she did and take your dad's name?" he suggested. "What was it? Tundra?"

"Yeah," she said. "Tundra. But I don't want that name."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Why not?" she shrilly repeated. "You, of all people, should understand, especially now," she said. "The only reason I'm stuck here is because of him."

"But I've heard you say a bunch of times that he's in your thoughts and guiding you through this place and every obstacle we've come across."

Olivia was going to argue with him, but she stopped herself when she realized that he was right. Her father _had_ been with her every step of the way, in spirit if not in reality, pushing her to keep going, reminding her how to use her powers in certain ways, and coming from her soul in her moments of conflict. And she'd longed to see him just once more, more times than she cared to admit out loud. She missed her dad, yes, but it suddenly occurred to her that he'd been right there with her all along. Tears sprang in her blue eyes in spite of herself, and she angrily wiped them away.

"I couldn't name myself after him," she finally confessed in a small voice. "I don't want a constant reminder of him hanging over my head for the rest of my life, especially now when I know he'll hate me after everything I've done."

"It seems to me he already is hanging over you," the boy told her. "With or without the name." He faintly smiled and then patted her arm. "But hey," he weakly croaked, "I actually think Snowflake suits you better."

Now Olivia scowled. "What is it with you and my brothers?" she hissed, thinking about the twins' suggestion as well. "Snowflake is the most unoriginal, stupid, cheesy-"

"Well, there's a movie I heard about," he interrupted her, and dread filled Olivia because she automatically knew where this was going. "It's very popular, I guess, and it's about a girl who can freeze stuff. I want to say her name is Eliza or Elsie."

"Elsa," she grumbled. "And no. I will commit hara-kiri before I name myself Elsa."

"Can _I_ call you Elsa?"

"No." She felt his forehead with the back of her hand, and he was still warm, but much cooler than he'd been a few hours ago. "This isn't a joke, Takeda. The Rite of Ascension is one of the most important days in a Lin Kuei's life. Kind of like becoming a Chujin in the Shirai Ryu."

Takeda chuckled, causing himself to cough again. "What's so funny?" she demanded to know as soon as he'd recovered his breath.

"It just sounds like this test is quite a big deal, but to be honest, I think you've gone through a test and then some," he croaked. "I think we both have. So if we get home, your dad should let you skip the test part of the Rite of Ascension."

She scoffed. "Well, it's a nice idea, but good luck convincing the Grandmaster." Now she leaned backwards on her elbows again and then loudly sighed. "It doesn't matter anyway. Not anymore."

"Why is that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Because I'm not going back to the Lin Kuei when and if I get out of Outworld," she said. "I can't go back. Not now. So I want to live a normal life, and I'll go to stay with my Grammy in New York until I can figure out how to go to college and get a job."

"A normal life sounds nice," he said. "I sometimes wonder what my life would've been like if my mom never died and my dad never took me away. I'd probably end up working in a crap job like my mom did. She worked in a restaurant, so she couldn't afford to send me to college, and my grandmother wouldn't have helped her. She didn't like me very much."

"Why not?"

"Because she didn't like my father," he sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "She always said I reminded her of him. My mother always told me not to listen to her because my dad was a good man. Boy, was she wrong. She should be in the _Guinness Book of World Records_ for the world's wrongest woman."

"I'm sure Kenshi had his reasons," she mused. "But knowing what fathers are like, they were probably all selfish reasons."

He scoffed. "Probably," he agreed. And then he started coughing. At first, they were little coughs, but quickly they became harder coughs like a seal bark, and he choked up blood and clots. Gruesome gore spilled over his lips like a waterfall.

"Oh, God," she gasped when she saw it. Immediately, she grabbed a piece of silk and wiped his face clean.

"Water," he wheezed, and she obliged him. She propped him against her body and helped him sip from the canteen once more.

"Takeda…" she trailed off, fighting back her frightened tears. She didn't particularly know what to say to him.

"We…We need to get moving," he managed to say, though he looked considerably paler than he did only moments before.

"You're not strong enough," she argued. "You'll just fall off your _iwana_ again."

"It's not going to matter much if Skarlet finds us and kills us," he shot back. He struggled to sit up, wheezing and gasping, so Olivia gave him her hand and helped him.

"Fine," she grumbled, but she knew he was right, and he wouldn't be deterred even if he wasn't. They _had_ to start traveling again. "But at least ride in the saddle in front of me so I can catch you if you faint again. The last thing I need is for you to fall on your head and get a concussion or break your neck."

"Yes, mother," he panted.

So they abandoned their shelter, and Olivia helped Takeda climb onto her _iwana_ with much difficulty. It was challenging for him. The pain in his belly hurt him so much that even walking was nearly impossible, even with the Cryomancer holding him up with one shoulder, and he stumbled more than once. By some miracle of God, she managed to thread his foot through the stirrup, ignoring his wails of pain. She felt bad for him, she really did, but he wasn't going to get up without the stirrup helping him. Then she pushed him up with her shoulders like a bull, and he fell into the saddle, sucking air through his teeth and groaning, hobbled over. Then Olivia untied the other _iwana_ and handed him the reins before she scurried up behind him, and they set off again at a somewhat slow canter.

Olivia stared around them, saw a rocky escarpment lifting out of the desert ahead like a beach rising from the sea, and wind-carved palisades beyond. There came a rushing sense of motion to their passage – blurred shadows of dunes, rocks lifting like islands. The _iwanas_ ventured down a dune, skipped across a sand valley, ascended yet another dune. A brutally dry wind screamed around them, blowing stinging granules at them from behind their backs. It carried with it the pungent odor of burning flint.

And then, about an hour after leaving their igloo, there came a rumbling. It came from the southeast, a distant hissing like a whisper. The ground began to vibrate and hum; it was hardly perceptible at first, but soon, the ground began to sway and groan, recoiling as if something hideous had touched it. Sand slid down from the tops of dunes like an avalanche, throwing thick clouds of dust into the air. Immediately, both of the _iwanas_ reared back, bellowing in protest as the rumbling became steadily louder, and Takeda's beast yanked itself free of his grip.

"What's got them so spooked?" he asked, concerned, as she jumped off hers and fought to catch the braying and prancing lizard by its reins. It was too upset, though, and she only managed to catch one of the saddle pack's leather strap and accidentally break it free.

Before she caught the _iwana_ , a great roar bellowed from the earth, and she slowly scanned the horizon, listening, watching for signs. Nothing could have ever prepared the Cryomancer for what her eyes saw; quickly, the faraway outline of a creature's long track below the surface of the desert slithered into view against the afternoon light, and it was then that she realized she'd never seen anything so large in her life, never _heard_ of anything this large, not even the dinosaurs. It appeared to be a mile or so long, and the rise of the sand wave at its cresting head was like the approach of a mountain.

"Olivia, get on!" Takeda screamed at her when he saw the approaching monster rising from the sand. But even as he yelled it, both _iwanas_ bolted, taking him with hers and leaving her behind. "Run!" he shrieked at her as he fought to grab the reins.

His beast raced up the dune face and beyond it where there was a rock tower undercut by sandblast winds. Olivia followed, scrambling and sliding up the dune. The creature – whatever it was – was coming fast for them. She gasped for air as she ran, and her terror summoned her powers to her hands. Every place she touched when she stumbled turned to ice. Had she time to reflect on it, she would've found the icy hand prints littering the side of the dune a funny sight to behold.

Soon, they came out onto a sand ridge that curved away towards the rocks. "Follow the ridge!" she cried ahead to him. He was still struggling to get control of her _iwana_ , and she heard his loud groans of pain as he twisted to catch the reins.

She slogged towards the rocks after them, the sand gripping her booted feet and dragging her down. And then, a loud and frightening sound began to impress itself on her: a grinding noise, a hissing, an abrasive slithering. It grew steadily louder, and she knew that the monstrous creature was almost upon them.

"Faster!" Olivia shrieked.

She shifted the saddle pack she'd yanked from the _iwana_ to her right arm, holding it by the straps. It slapped her side as she ran and caught up to her classmate. She took Takeda's arm with her other hand, and somehow, he mustered enough strength to yank her back onto the trotting beast. Once back on, she snatched the leather reins from him and took control once more, and she guided the _iwana_ onto the lifting rock, up a pebbled-littered surface through a twisted, wind-carved channel. Breath came dry and gasping in her throat as she panted.

Olivia now stopped them, pressed them all into a gut of rock, turned and looked down onto the desert. A mound-in-motion ran parallel to their rock island – sunlit ripples, sand waves, a cresting burrow almost level with the Cryomancer's eyes at a distance of a quarter mile. The flattened dunes of its track curved once – a short loop crossing the patch of desert where their _iwana_ now raced in fear. The monster was gaining on it.

Flecks of dust shadowed the sand around the doomed creature now, choking out the air with a cloud of dirt and debris. The overgrown lizard brayed in fear as it tumbled to the right, knocked about by the growing earthquake. While Olivia and Takeda watched in horror, a gigantic sand whirlpool began forming around the animal. It moved faster and faster. Sand and dust filled the air now for hundreds of yards around. And then they saw it!

A wide hole emerged from the sand. Sunlight flashed from several rows of glistening white teeth like that of a great white shark. The hole's diameter was at least three times that of the _iwana_ , Olivia estimated. She watched as the frightened creature slid into that opening in a billow of dust and sand. The hole pulled back with a terrifying, trumpeting roar. Then it dove beneath the sand dunes again just as fast as it had come, and where it had been there was no sign of the poor animal.

"Oh, my God," Olivia muttered over and over to herself, shaking. Unbeknownst to her, she hugged Takeda tightly to her from behind.

"What _is_ that thing?" he nervously chattered, his voice weak and pain-stricken, but as terrified as hers.

"I don't know," she mumbled as tears streaked down her dirty face. That poor _iwana_. "It almost looked like…a _worm_."

They watched with hearts pounding in their chests as the burrow mound turned outward into the desert again for a moment, then coursed back across its own path, questing. And then, the thing turned towards the rocks, speeding now on a straight track toward them. It surfaced once more, and sand tumbled into its wide-open mouth, its enormous teeth getting larger in their sight.

* * *

 **Author's Note: The worm creature was inspired a little by _Beetlejuice_ , but also _Dune_. Didn't want to say that above lest I spoil this chapter. **

**DarkAssassin15, thank you. To answer your musings, I think he still would've been pissed off, but there probably wouldn't be a story now, so...Yeah. LOL**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, well, you don't become a killer for hire by having a warm and fuzzy childhood. ;)**

 **Lightrunner, thanks. Hopefully, Kuai Liang and Olivia's reunion will be as good as you're expecting! And sure, I'll give it a read. Is it on your profile?**

 **PinkRedRose2, first of all, thank you for adding me to your fave authors and following _Tales of the Lin Kuei_. I agree with your statement that Olivia gets her stubbornness from both of her parents. I think Anya has a little bit more faith in her than her father does, though. I think he's starting to see that she's far more resourceful than he gives her credit for, that she's a survivor and a fighter. **

**Hell-on-Training-Wheels, oh, pooh. Yes, you will. Wait, what am I saying? _You already have_. His whole tragic childhood is good stuff. Don't dog yourself. Plus, you're much more in tune with Erron's character than I am! But thank you for that high praise. It means a lot to me, especially that you've given me your seal of approval for the way I write Erron :) **

**Westcoast Witchdoctor, you know, I actually like that idea of Erron and Scorpion having a common ground. I may work that in somehow. LOL As for Kuai Liang becoming a rage monkey, I think he's starting to chill out (forgive the pun). I think Erron's story and what he said about his own kid not making it to her first birthday has shocked some sense into him. And Smoke and Fujin are _always_ going to throw shade at one another. Ever since they met each other, that's been their thing. :D **

**ROCuevas, thanks!**

 **iceangelmkx, oh, no worries. I'm glad you're catching up now. I've wanted your opinion so much but I didn't want to annoy you! As for Olivia's misadventure with Reiko in the bedroom, well, you know I've never played fair. ;) I've always thrown as much crap at my characters as I can. It makes you root for them all the more, and when they're victorious, it's about ten times sweeter. Oh, man, I totally forgot how Subby helped Kenshi in Deception, and how I mirrored that in _Curse_. Good eye, my friend! **

**Reptaliator, first thing, unless you review under a separate name, then no, I didn't say your comments were sexist. That was, as far as I know, someone else. Anyway, your grievance makes more sense now, but here's the thing. _We_ may know that Outworld generals come back, but keep in mind that Olivia is young and that she _doesn't_ know. Why would she? She's never dealt with them before. And she doesn't know that Reiko's under the influence of Blood Magik. As far as she know, stabbing someone through the chest should kill them. Anticipating anything else would just be unrealistic. As for your request, I appreciate the offer, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline. The only reason I asked Firebending Master to help me choreograph fight scenes is because I actually know him in real life. Plus, you don't have a permanent account, so how would we interact? And even if you had an account, I don't really feel comfortable doing collaborations, especially since I don't really know you. So, thanks anyway. And lastly, in regards to your request that I only focus on the kids, again, the answer is no. I have a plan that I'm following, and I won't abandon it simply because you want me to. It's my story. I'm the author of it and I steer this ship; I'm not anyone's trained monkey. I've switched back and forth between the adults and the kids for a reason, and to stop that now would create a huge inconsistency in tone. In short, it would be bad for my story. That said, my plan _does_ have me sticking with the kids for the majority of the time for at least a few chapters.**


	30. Here There Be Monsters

**Author's Note: I just wanted to say that I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and holiday season, and also a Happy New Year's. Thanks to everyone who has faved me or my stories, followed me, left me comments, etc. You guys are great, and I'm so thankful for all of your support. I really am. Thank you so much. Also, thanks to Hell-on-Training-Wheels for letting me bounce ideas for this chapter. :)**

 **Oh, also, you may have noticed that the name of this chapter is the same as the previous chapter. Well, I decided that name was more fitting for this chapter, so I went back and changed the name of the last one. No biggie, but it just suited my ideas better.**

* * *

Olivia breathed deeply, smelling the mineral bitterness of the sea of sand as she wrapped the rescued pack over her shoulder. The sandworm, the father of all monsters, loomed large, almost on her and Takeda. Its cresting front segments threw a sand wave that swept across her knees even as high up on the rock as they were. She gulped but summoned her powers to the surface, confident that even worms of this size could freeze to death from one well-placed ice ball. But at that moment, several things happened. The _iwana_ shrieked a wild neigh of fear and then bucked them off its back before it turned tail and ran through the rocky arch, charging towards the mountains. Olivia felt something slither against her arm as she pushed herself up. A second later, Takeda screamed as something yanked him towards the worm.

She dove for him, now cursing, too stunned to cry. When her hands firmly wrapped around his, she swung around and saw the sand around them seething. From the dunes, a long sinuous tentacle had crawled like some sort of writhing probe; it was brown and rough, and the way it flitted across the ground like a searching tongue was practically obscene. Its hardened tip, which vaguely struck her like a rattlesnake's rattle, had wrapped around Takeda's ankle and was dragging him towards the mouth of the monster. Olivia was now on her knees, slashing at it with a kori sword, but shocked by how resilient its flesh was. She might as well have been chopping stone for all the good it did her.

The tentacle tired of her onslaught, and now released Takeda, only to slap the sword from the Cryomancer's hands. It poised to strike her again, but this time she threw a jet of cryogenic energy at it, and it froze in an instant, shattering like glass upon the sand. From somewhere below the earth, a dull roar bellowed and shook the ground. Olivia wasted no time threading her arms below Takeda's armpits and pulling him back up the rock.

Even that was quickly overwhelmed by what seemed, at first, to be the dull rumble of rolling thunder. The rocky island the teenagers clung to shook so hard that dust and bits of debris sifted out over the edges. The natural archway above them had already collapsed, but the rest threatened to crack and break open as well. And then, from the sand below rose the terrible beast, the sand worm, the mighty King of the Red Desert. The same teeth that had snatched the _iwana_ in its mouth gleamed white in the daylight. Olivia's heart sprang into her throat and she shoved herself backwards through a mound of sand, her reaction as much from surprise as from fear. It bellowed, the sound like the angry shriek of metal colliding with metal.

The creature slithered in great serpentine arcs through the sand, making a track around the stony island. Once it had made a single lap, the worm swiveled its bulbous head around, taking in its surroundings, before focusing on its latest prey. It snorted and then wailed in frustration, its glittering silver drool pooling on the sand, and its swift, inexorable glides shook the ground beneath.

Olivia struggled to stand, to work her way between the beast and a badly bleeding Takeda, but she managed to climb to her feet in spite of the rumbling. _Come on, you monster_ , she cursed at it with hands glowing blue. A new sand wave lifted her body. Surface dust swept across them both. She steadied herself, her world dominated by the passage of that sand-clouded curving wall, that segmented cliff, the ring lines sharply defined in it.

With a deep primal grunt, the worm suddenly snapped its body forward, hurling its body at her with all its overwhelming strength. Its massive head soared directly towards Olivia to slam her backwards with devastating force. But the Cryomancer leapt to the side just in time before the beast crashed into the stone wall a few paces to the right. The wall fractured, the damage a cobweb of deep cracks and fissures that crumbled dangerously close to Takeda. The worm didn't so much as slow. Its mighty tail pounded the sandy ground as it wheeled around and now flanked the Cryomancer. Its movements, Olivia realized, were decidedly snake-like.

The worm leapt.

Olivia, still standing, produced a kori sword in her hands before it reached her. She spun it once, twice, and then leaned forward, the great icy blade like a lance. At the apex of the worm's jump, the sharp-tongued tip of the sword seemed, almost gently, to kiss the belly of the beast. With a pained roar, it crashed into a natural jagged wall that scraped the sky like gnashing teeth. Stone exploded in a billowing cloud of dust.

Quickly, Olivia aimed twin jets of cryogenic energy at the creature, and the monster cried out as the ice raced across its hardened skin. But then it shivered, and the ice shattered, the thick chunks falling harmlessly to the ground. The worm roared in fury, and for a fleeting moment, she thought, _I'm fucked_. Instantly, it reared, its enormous segmented wall whipping at her like a lasso to crush the Cryomancer under its weight. But Olivia deftly fought back, wielding a new kori sword as if it were a simple toy. Against the hard scales, however, her efforts did little good.

Then she had an idea. Olivia broke into a charge across the lengthy expanse of rock. Again, her kori sword spun, once, twice – and the Cryomancer dug it into the worm's side, in the soft part between segments. It sank through the brown, tan, and black scales, which were weaker there, spraying creamy white goo that splattered her hand. Olivia quickly formed a new kori sword in her other hand and drove it into the beast's side as well. She then leapt upward, planting her feet against that wall, leaning out against the clinging barbs that decorated the edges of each segment. It wasn't hard to pull herself up all the way from there.

Soon, Olivia found herself riding on top of the sandworm. She felt exultant, like an empress surveying her world. She suppressed the sudden urge to cavort there, to turn the worm, to show off her mastery of this creature, but she couldn't think about her victory long. Her attack had hurt the worm, and it snapped its tail at the girl as if flicking away a fly. The power of it lifted her off its body and tossed her onto the rock on her back, knocking the wind completely from her.

"Olivia!" she heard Takeda cry from somewhere close by. His voice was as weak as she felt.

 _I'm going to die_ , she mused with sudden clarity, choking for air. There was no way to beat this creature. Not on her own. Maybe if her father was there, they could combine their powers in such a way as to do something useful. But on her own, she was helpless.

At the thought, the sand worm was upon her. She heard the steady hissing of that giant, leathery body displacing sand, and when she looked up, her head resting on the hot ground like it was a pillow, the monster was diving towards her, its mouth open wide. _Just how bad will getting eaten hurt?_ she wondered. In a last ditch effort to save herself, Olivia formed an ice ball in her palms, precariously balancing it in her hands as it expanded by the second into the largest she'd ever made. Before she could even feel the worm's breath warming her like a blast of heat from an oven, she threw the ball upward towards its open mouth, praying for a miracle.

Her prayer was answered. The ball hit its mark. The creature roared once more, but its voice abruptly ended when the ice enveloped its vocal chords. Quickly, ice began to stretch and expand from its mouth, spreading outward, crackling and popping as it spread over the scales. It froze the worm into place, a great shimmering blue statue dominating the landscape. Olivia looked at it in shock. It was dumb luck that had saved her, and nothing more. At the thought, she nervously giggled, softly at first but soon laughing loudly; after several long moments of this, she unexpectedly burst into tears.

And then, a fearsome cracking, not unlike the shattering of some great, frozen lake, suddenly echoed around the teenagers, and it was followed by the immediate disintegration of the rock beneath them. Instantly, both Olivia and Takeda were tumbling through an avalanche of sand and dirt, sliding towards the worm and the hollow tunnels it had burrowed. Vaguely, the Cryomancer saw her companion, a bloody blotch set in stark contrast against golden yellow, trying to catch himself in the falling debris. Before the echoes of that crack had faded away, it was replaced by the sound of them crashing into the ground. Everything abruptly went black.

* * *

"You understand, do you not, that even with my help, this shall be a challenging spell to execute?"

The peculiar pair, the Outworld General and the Chaosrealm Cleric, currently occupied a shallow cavern in a cliff face network of tunnels. They didn't dare go any farther. Terrible things lurked underground, evil spirits that would trick people into following them to their doom. To further ensure they were left alone by the yurei, Reiko had built a fire behind them. It blazed inside his intense green eyes. Across the floor of the cave, in the dirt and sand, Havik had sketched an array of glyphs and sigils. They were spidery, squiggly little things, almost dizzying to look at.

Other than the crackling fire and the occasional scrape of the Cleric's cloak against a low-hanging stalactite, the only sounds in the cave were occasional hints of the Tarkatans and Edenians milling about on the sand outside, making preparations for the next leg of the journey.

"I'm aware," Reiko finally said to him, his answer so long in coming that the Cleric had been opening his mouth to repeat himself. "My abilities far surpass yours. I have another purpose in mind for you."

The General plunged his scythe tip-first into one of the stone walls and left it hanging until he might need it. He barely glanced at Skarlet's body, which lay dead in the corner beneath it. A group of scouts had found her remains near the site of a titanic battle between his forces and Earthrealm's Champions, and returned them to him. There was nothing he could do for her now. At least, nothing he wanted to expend his energy on. He focused, instead, on seizing control of Takeda through the wound he'd inflicted. With infinite care, so as not to disturb even one of the symbols in the dirt, he lowered himself to sit cross-legged before the fire.

"What I plan to do is simple enough," he continued. "It is only a minor manipulation of things. No more complicated than anything else I've done a thousand times before. The problem is the _magnitude_. I've never attempted this at such a great distance."

"You require additional power," Havik deduced.

"Precisely. I need you to gather your energies, as though to cast your greatest spells, and then channel them into me. Can you do it?"

The Chaosrealm Cleric paused, his expression thoughtful. "I've never attempted anything like it," he admitted, "but I have cooperated with other sorcerers and clerics in the casting of a particularly difficult invocation. I imagine the mental effort should be similar enough." He met Reiko's gaze with his own. Flames danced in his ghastly, bloodshot eyeballs. "Let us begin, then," he said.

"I'll need to remain focused on the incantation once it's started," Reiko told him. He straightened, placed both palms against the sand, and began.

The General felt as though he were sinking through the sand, submerged in lightning sand beneath the arid crust. A dry, wretched heat pressed him from all sides; he actually tasted pestilence on his tongue.

 _Ignore it. Press on._

Deeper, following the beating of hearts that pounded in his ears like a steady drum. Deeper, sifting through taut heartstrings that snared him, searching for one in particular, searching for Takeda. Deeper, carried through the universe on a great red tide, pulsing towards a certain destination. And he found it. A single weak voice in the deafening chorus; a single drop in the bloody surf, bound to him by accursed magik. Takeda.

From a great distance, somewhere outside of himself, he heard his voice say, "Now."

Power surged around him, through him. It didn't feel like an upwelling of strength, precisely, so much as a swelling of _motivation_. Willpower. The chance to perform miracles, not because he suddenly could, but because he suddenly knew he would. He was destined to be the one true Blood God.

He was back in his body now, sitting stiffly on the cavern floor. Before him, the flames burned low, snapping like some enraged hound. Havik appeared frozen, save for the beading perspiration on his skeletal forehead. An odd breeze, one that seemed to blow upward from the floor, through the scattered runes, ebbed and flowed without disturbing the dirt or the cinders thrown from the fire.

In the dirt, beneath Reiko's open palms, blood began to pool. Takeda's blood.

Thin at first, watery and black, almost more like ink than blood, it seeped from the earth. Slowly, as the pools expanded, it coalesced further, growing thicker, the black fading to a rich crimson. From the teenage boy into whom it had flowed, the dark magik and iron will of the General summoned it to him. He was its master, linking him to the boy's soul.

Again Reiko reached out, mystically, spiritually, beyond his body, beyond the cave. Riding the flow of Havik's magik as he would have ridden a great steed, he spread his influence throughout the Realm, stretching his blood magik, the call of it, farther than he ever had before. Farther than he ever _could_ , without the Cleric's assistance. The chant emerging from Reiko's throat shifted tone, issuing a silent command. It seeped his poisonous intent into the boy's blood. With every beat of his heart, his spell over him deepened, taking total control.

* * *

Olivia groaned and pushed herself onto all fours. Squinting, she looked up at the hole in the roof where she and Takeda had fallen through. It was at least fifty feet up, she reckoned, and it wouldn't be an easy climb, even with her powers assisting her. As her vision cleared, she now saw a dark tunnel leading away, concealed in shadows. A chill ran down her spine as she remembered Erron Black's warning not to go underground for any reason. A gust of cool air exploded from the passage then, and the hair on her neck and arms prickled to attention.

"Takeda?" she nervously grunted as she stood up, rubbing the swollen knot forming on her forehead. She winced in pain. Blood from a gash stained her fingers.

Suddenly, a wail pierced her ears and something jumped on her shoulders, tackling her to the ground. Too stunned to shriek, Olivia quickly pulled her assailant over her shoulder by the hair and body-slammed him to the ground. Frothing at the mouth as if he had rabies, Takeda clawed at her, ripping her cheek open in three long cuts with his fingernails. She yelped in pain as blood dribbled down her face and fire flooded through her eyeball.

"Takeda, what's wrong with you?" she managed to yell. She blocked a right hook, then a left. But he didn't answer her, and that's when she caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were there, but they were vacant, as if he was a distant memory.

Like a tiger, he pounced on the Cryomancer again and tightly wrapped his fingers around her throat, clamping down. "You're coming with me to Lord Reiko!" he hissed, almost as if he was in a trance. He choked her harder now, and she started to lose consciousness.

Terrified, ice naturally flowed into her hands, forming a kori knife. But she never got to wield it. Just before she was ready to jab it through his middle, a large hand wafting fog slapped him over the shoulder and pumped cryogenic energy into his skin. Instantly, Takeda slumped on top of her like a sack of potatoes, unconscious. Her savior promptly tossed him off her and chucked him into the nearest wall while Olivia barked like a seal, trying to regain her air.

Frightened tears flooded her eyes, blinding her. Embarrassed, she wiped them away and looked up at the Cryomancer who'd helped her. Immediately, her jaw dropped to her chest. Standing above her, with his longish hair neatly slicked back, wearing the same solid black uniform he donned when he was a wraith, was Bi-han.

"Uncle?" she squeaked, certain that her eyes were playing tricks on her. The heat and the stress of the Red Desert had finally gotten to her and fried her brain. She was hallucinating.

But he extended his hand for her to take, and when she gripped it, he was a tangible thing, flesh and blood just like her. He easily lifted her to her feet, saying nothing. But as soon as she was standing again, she threw herself into his chest to hug him, knowing she was finally saved. In many ways, she often thought of him as more ferocious and dangerous than her own father. He would lead her out of this hellhole and keep her safe for the duration. Suddenly, she believed everything would be alright.

"Uncle Bi-han, how did you find me?" she whispered, her voice cracking as fresh tears cut new tracks through the dirt on her face.

"You and that sandworm had quite the row," he replied, pulling away from her, never returning her embrace. His voice was the same as she remembered, but vaguely flat. "It wasn't hard to find you."

"Did my dad send you?" she asked him hopefully, inwardly praying that he had. If he'd gone to the trouble of coercing Uncle Bi-han into giving up his solitude to return to Outworld, which was undoubtedly a battle unto itself, then it meant her father actually cared about her.

"No," he said, his tone dull and uninspired, and he didn't elaborate further. Now he looked at Takeda. "Your friend has been affected by blood magik. Reiko now has control over him. He's dangerous. We should kill him."

"No!" Olivia cried, stunned by her uncle's heartlessness. "We'll just…we'll just tie him up somehow. But we have to take him with us. _Alive_."

"Very well," Bi-han agreed. From a pouch on his belt, he produced a strange rope that pulsated green, and then used it to bind Takeda's hands behind his back and to his chest. Then he hoisted him over a shoulder, and motioned for Olivia to follow him down the tunnel.

"Come," he ordered her. The young Cryomancer blinked. His voice was strange, distant. Something about him was off, but she couldn't quite place it.

"Let's go back to the surface," she countered. "Erron Black said it's too dangerous to travel underground."

"Erron Black is a mercenary for hire," Bi-han snapped, his blue eyes suddenly blazing with cold, almost supernatural, fire. "He has probably hidden half his treasures down here, and he told you a ghost story to keep you from stumbling onto it."

"But-"

Immediately, her uncle reached out and slapped her. "I am your _uncle_!" he growled as she rubbed her face, stunned. Wounded tears welled up in her already damp eyes. "You will do as I say. This is no time for arguing."

Olivia gulped. "But he said that no matter what, we shouldn't go underground." She flinched, afraid to get slapped again. Her face still burned and stung where he'd hit her, and it still wept blood from where Takeda had scratched her. Every inch of her, it seemed, throbbed in pain.

"It is foolish to travel during the day on the surface," he barked. "And Reiko will never find you down here. And Erron Black is dead. So I will not say it again. Come."

The teenager nodded, not wanting to disobey her uncle. "Yes, Uncle Bi-han," she obediently replied, wincing as she thought about the gunslinger. He'd died, and it was her fault for leaving him behind, hell, for being in Outworld at all. And worse, that damn _iwana_ of hers ran off with his guns and his hat in its saddlebags. She was almost glad he _was_ dead; she didn't want to have to explain to him that almost immediately after he'd entrusted her with his antique guns, she'd lost them.

Bi-han relaxed slightly and waited for her to join his side before he reached into his pouch once more and produced a small mag-light flashlight. He turned it on and went ahead holding it high; Olivia, stumbling behind, struggled to keep up. The cave floor was uneven and rocky; still, her uncle lithely moved forward without any trouble, which vaguely struck her as odd. She could see nothing but the dim light bouncing off the walls ahead, and the strange glow of the rope that secured Takeda, but she imagined she heard an endless whisper of voices all around her, a murmur of words spoken in a strange language she'd never heard before. Her skin prickled uneasily.

Nothing happened as they walked through the tunnels, and yet the Cryomancer grew steadily afraid with each moment that passed. Perhaps her uncle had been right; Erron merely exaggerated the dangers in order to preserve a well-guarded secret. But her heart screamed at her otherwise. She heard it thunder in her ears as she walked, and soon, she was nervously gasping as a heavy weight pressed in on her from all sides. She briefly thought about turning back, but she was half certain that the path back to the hole was thronged by things unseen that were following in the dark.

Olivia wasn't certain how much time had passed when ahead, the light reflected off some glittering object. The fear was so heavy on her now that she didn't want to walk, but her uncle, undaunted, walked towards it. It was the skeleton of a very large man, perhaps a giant, propped against a wall. He had been clad in chain mail, and a gold helmet after the Roman fashion sat in the dirt beside him. A notched and broken sword balanced across his lap; it seemed as if it had been badly damaged in battle. But against what?

Bi-han did not touch the body, but after gazing silently for a while he said, "He must have gotten lost down here."

"What if _we_ get lost?" she asked, unable to take her eyes off the body.

There was no answer, unless it was an utter silence more fearsome than the whispers she thought she'd heard before. Without a word, he resumed walking down the tunnel.

"How did you find us?" Olivia asked him again, this time in trepidation. "If my dad didn't send you, how did you even know I was in Outworld?"

"I came with him and your mother," he distantly replied. "Tomas' family came with us, as did Scorpion, Kenshi, and Fujin."

"Then where are they?" she demanded to know.

"Gone," he said curtly.

"Gone?" she frowned. "What does _that_ mean? Are they-"

She couldn't bear to finish her thought, not really certain she wanted to know the answer to the question sitting on her tongue. What if, like Erron Black, they'd been killed? In Outworld, it was an entirely plausible thing, even though her father was called the Dragonslayer and the one true Dragon King. When she thought of the Grandmaster, she suddenly remembered her nightmare in which Reiko had murdered him, had effortlessly stripped him of his soul as simple as tugging on a string. What if…what if he really _had_ died, and her dream had been an omen? She'd heard of such strange things happening to people in Earthrealm. What if it had happened to her too? Fresh tears sprang to her eyes, setting her wounded cheek aflame once more, as she inwardly begged any god listening not to take her dad away from her.

Much to her relief, Bi-han said, "They're alive."

"Then why-"

"Because they left," he abruptly cut her off. "They gave up on finding you. So they took off and left."

"What?" she yelped. Her voice loudly echoed off the walls as her heart dropped into her stomach. She felt sick, and stopped in her tracks. "Why?"

"Because you've been a disgrace to the Lin Kuei," he coldly replied. "Your father is disgusted by you. Skarlet told them everything about you, everything you've said, everything you've done. She told them about the man you _murdered_ , and she told them about your dalliance with Reiko." His voice was so casual, so indifferent, that they could've been talking about the weather for all she knew.

Olivia doubled over as if she'd been kicked in the gut. She felt her mouth water sickly as if she was about to throw up. "What?" she gasped, clinging to the wall to keep from falling down. "They know? _He_ …knows?" she whispered, swallowing hard.

New tears cut fresh tracks over the old ones. Even if she'd made it back to Earthrealm, she'd planned on taking those secrets with her to the grave. She'd never let her mother touch her again if she had to, but she did _not_ want her family to learn the truth. But it was too late. They knew she'd dishonored herself just for the sake of survival, and worse, she'd dishonored the _Lin Kuei_. It was not how a member of her father's clan was supposed to behave. Perhaps her dad had been right; maybe she _didn't_ deserve to graduate after all.

Finally, Bi-han stopped and glared at her. He trained the light in her direction as if shining a spotlight over every horrible thing she'd done. It highlighted her heartbroken expression, which contorted into an ugly mask that tried to fight back the deluge threatening to explode from her eyes. She was rapidly losing the battle. A steady stream of tears dribbled from her eyes against her will.

"They know everything you've done since you arrived in Outworld," he told her. "When your father, my _brother_ , found out that you'd slept with Reiko, Earthrealm's _enemy_ , he immediately disowned you. He said you'd betrayed him and the Lin Kuei, and if you would do such a vile thing with Reiko, if you would let him touch you, then let Reiko be your salvation."

Once more, another kick to the gut. She clutched her stomach even more tightly now, and let her head collapse onto the arm that propped her against the wall. She quietly sobbed into her gauzy shirt, wetting the cloth, letting her messy hair spill over her face to hide it.

"I'm sorry," she whined almost inaudibly.

"Your mother wasn't hard to convince either," Uncle Bi-han now added. "She said she couldn't believe her daughter was such a slut."

"But I'm not!" she cried as she looked up at him, almost begging him to believe her.

"Alexander had the worst reaction," he told her, prompting her to meet his frozen blue eyes. "The news that you'd cheated on him crushed him. At first, he tried to shoot himself. Tomas stopped him. But then he started cursing the day your parents had you. He wants nothing to do with you ever again."

Olivia couldn't take it. The tears exploded from her eyes and she collapsed to her knees, sobbing into her hands. "But I had no choice," she whimpered between cries. "You believe me, don't you?" she asked, looking up her uncle with soggy eyes. "Uncle Bi-han, I didn't have a choice!"

"You always have a choice," he growled without sympathy. "You didn't have to act like such a little shit back home. You had it good there, Olivia. Much better than I ever did. But you had rules to obey, rules you didn't care for, so you decided to act like a spoiled brat. If it weren't for you, none of this would've happened."

"I'm sorry," she whimpered again, bawling into her hands.

"Sorry is not good enough," he barked. "You've caused a lot of trouble, not least of which is getting Erron Black killed. How do you think the Emperor is going to react when he finds out that you ditched one of his guards and let him die?"

"I don't know!" she wailed, now crying for Erron, for her father, her mother, Alex, everybody.

"I'll tell you how," he snarled. "He's going to be furious. It might just prompt him to try declare Mortal Kombat against Earthrealm. Once more, we'll have to put up more warriors to fight to keep him from invading! Good men and women will die protecting Earthrealm, maybe even your family or members of your clan. It'll be like Shao Kahn all over again. Billions of lives at stake because you wanted to act like a slut and break your father's rules!"

Olivia was crying so hard now she couldn't breathe. _I'm sorry_ , she kept screaming in her head over and over, but to whom she was apologizing, she didn't know. She just felt remorse rip her apart from the inside out, and it grew worse when she imagined Alex trying to kill himself, and even worse still when she imagined her mother shouting at her that she was a murderous slut who deserved what she got. But the worst mental image was that of her father. In her mind's eye, he merely shook his head in disgust and disappointment, and then turned his back on her, walking away. He'd left her. He'd abandoned her. In _Outworld_. The thought made her choke on her tears, and she struggled to inhale air into her burning lungs.

Finally, Bi-han said, "I guess your parents decided that the risks of saving you didn't outweigh the benefits of keeping you. So Fujin sent them home. He, Kenshi, Scorpion, and I stayed behind."

"Why?" she mumbled, still sobbing on the ground. "If I'm so horrible, why did you bother to find me?"

"I came for Takeda," he bluntly stated.

The declaration elicited more sobs. If Uncle Bi-han, who'd done the most awful things a person could possibly imagine – the man had been a _demon_ for crying out loud – couldn't even forgive her for her crimes, then what good was she? She gathered her knees up to her face and cried into them until she thought she was going to turn into jerky. The elder Cryomancer patiently watched her the entire time, never taking his accusing glare off her. She felt it pierce her, even if she didn't see it.

Eventually, he impatiently snapped, "Quit crying. You have no one to blame but yourself."

"Yes…sir," she hiccupped, trying to obey him. She sniveled and shuddered.

"On your feet," he barked.

"Yes, Uncle Bi-han," she sniffed. The tears still streamed down her face of their own accord, but somehow, she pushed herself up and stood tall.

"You're lucky I don't want to see a single drop of Cryomancer blood go to waste," he told her. "Otherwise, I'd leave you here to die. You've really screwed up this time."

"I'm sorry," she apologized yet again, dropping her head. Leave it to Uncle Bi-han to be brutally honest with her. "I'm so sorry," she sniffed again.

"Come on," he ordered as if he hadn't heard her.

* * *

The Earthrealm Champions marched along the brink of a tall sand dune until they found a way into a stony gully whose walls, which were hidden in shadow, sheltered them from the burning sunlight. It was a welcome reprieve from the blaring heat and dry, standing air. Here, it was cooler, and somewhat sheltered. As they walked through that narrow gulch single-file, Anya, who took up the rear, imagined she heard the faint sounds of footsteps behind her, and occasionally a small stone falling, a breath sighing. But when she turned and looked, she saw nothing. So she'd shrug and look ahead to her husband, who walked right in front of her at the head of the group.

Kuai Liang was struggling, she knew. She longed to stay angry with him, but with every step he took, his shoulders sloped forward that much more, and pity, not fury, swelled through her heart instead. He hadn't meant for any of this to happen, she reasoned. He loved his little girl, and always had, Anya reminded herself. He dearly loved _all_ of his children, but with Olivia, he shared a special bond because she was a Cryomancer, just like him, and the only one he could truly entrust to carry on his legacy. Anya mused that, for all their differences, the two were remarkably similar in disposition and outlook. They had the same dry sense of humor, the same strong sense of justice, the same desire to prove themselves, the same need to rise above whatever obstacles life threw in their path. Hell, they even looked like one another. They were truly kindred spirits, Anya knew, whether they knew it or not, whether they liked it or not.

Anya thought back to a time when Olivia was roughly eight. The Hydromancer had to return to Outworld, to Tlachtga to train with Himavat and the other Healers, and to teach the other Healers about medical science. Kuai Liang had been confident that he could care for all four children – even the twins – without any help at all. And he had. But poor Olivia had fallen deathly ill with the stomach flu, and he'd had his hands full taking care of ornery twins, a toddler, and a girl who had gushy stuff coming out both ends. He cleaned up her vomit and diarrhea-soaked sheets, the floor, and the bathroom like a champ, and he'd fed her chicken broth and 7-up, bathed her, and kept her clean and dry until she recovered. On the second night of this, when she started to cry for her mother, he allowed her to sleep in the bed with him; according to him, she'd curled up in a ball against him, refusing to leave his side. Anya later found out that Olivia had been running a fever of 105, so Kuai Liang stayed up half the night with his palm on her forehead, gently using his powers to cool her down and make her more comfortable.

He had taken damn good care of his daughter, and when _he_ fell ill with the same stomach flu shortly thereafter, Olivia, who was feeling better, helped the servant, Kamala, take care of him while Kailyn and Tomas watched the other children. The little Cryomancer tried to do everything her daddy had done for her – use her powers to cool his fever, wash out the bucket he'd puked in when he couldn't make it to the toilet, and brought him 7-up and chicken broth to settle his tummy. She even slept in his bed with him "so he wouldn't be lonely because he missed mommy." In fact, when Anya had returned from her trip, she found them asleep together in the king-sized bed, with Olivia snuggled against his armpit, resting her head on his shoulder while he lay on his back, shivering. The comforter was pulled up around his neck, held firmly in place by his daughter. It occurred to the Hydromancer that Olivia had been trying to keep him warm.

Anya had always thought that the most special moment between her husband and daughter, and it was a story she told constantly to anyone who'd listen. "They just take care of each other," she'd say. "They always have, and they always will." It destroyed the Hydromancer to think that their special relationship could be over because of misunderstandings on both their parts.

And God, what if they never got Olivia back? Anya wasn't certain she could take that. All of her children weren't just separate entities put in her life by chance. Their souls were ripped from hers the very moment they were each conceived, and their bodies had grown around them, occupying the same place as their mother. For nine months – seven, in the case of the twins – they had been one with her. During that time, she got to learn every nuance in behavior, every quirk in their disposition. They were as much a part of her as anything, and to lose one of them would be to lose herself.

She thought of all her babies as she walked, and to the time she was pregnant with each; it took her mind off the dull ugliness of the desert. Olivia, for example, had been ornery. It drove Anya mad the way that child would stubbornly creep up beneath her ribs and then start kicking as if she wanted to swim even higher. It sure didn't help ease her morning sickness having a baby use her stomach like a trampoline. The twins had been obnoxious too, kicking the crap out of her innards as if they were having a soccer match right in her uterus. She would lift her shirt and show Kuai Liang his sons as they moved, and he laughed because he thought they looked like aliens trying to burst from her stomach. Samantha had been the most docile of the four, the reward for Anya having to put up with her older children. But Olivia was the one she remembered the most, partly because she was the first, partly because the pregnancy itself was completely unplanned and had started right in the middle of Outworld when it seemed as if the universe would come to an end.

Anya sighed. Her feet were tired and her calves burned. She frequently formed balls of water in her hands that she immediately broke upon her own head to cool her and stop the sweat from pouring a little while longer. After a while, the wind picked up, roaring up the crevice and blowing towards the sandy hills in the distance. Anya protectively shielded her face from the grit and sand that gusted over them all. And then suddenly, a strange creature like a giant iguana, which was fitted with reins and a saddle, charged towards them from behind a dune.

"Catch it!" Erron hollered, but Fujin was already ahead of him.

As gracefully as the most agile bird, the Wind God leapt into the air and onto the rampaging creature, which seemed more frightened than anything. With some difficulty, he grappled the reins and pulled the animal to a stop, and then rode it back to the others, who were watching in stunned interest.

"What is _that_?" Morgan asked her father, her eyebrows furrowed in curiosity.

"An _iwana_ ," he said as he patted its neck to calm it.

"Where's its rider?" Hanzo now wondered, scanning the flat, barren landscape for any sign of the beast's owner. Anya and the others followed suit. There was no one to be seen. In the distance, however, there was something else.

"What in the hell is _that_?" the Healer asked, pointing.

"It looks like a… _worm_ ," Erron told her, now trotting towards it.

"A what?" she cried, suddenly repulsed. She and the others followed after him, with Fujin and the _iwana_ taking up the rear.

Sure enough, as the group ran closer, they realized that the creature before them was some sort of giant worm like something out of a horror movie. But it was quite obviously dead. Frozen in place like a statue, a sheen of ice coated its ugly scales and segmented body. It hadn't been like this for long, Anya guessed. Water glistened on it; undoubtedly the ice had begun to melt in the setting sun and scorching heat. But it had only barely begun to thaw. Erron made a face at it as he put his hands on his hips, then cast a look at both Kuai Liang and Anya.

"Call me crazy, but I think your daughter passed this way," he drawled.

"Was it that obvious?" her husband replied.

"She's obviously still alive," Anya said, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Maybe not," Fujin now said, and when everyone turned to look at him, he was sadly rifling through the saddle packs on the riderless _iwana_. He yanked out a pair of pistols whose ivory stocks had yellowed with age. "Erron," he said, "I think these belong to you."

The gunslinger inhaled deeply, tensing as he sauntered to the Wind God and took back his guns. He examined them and then shook his head. "Yeah, they do."

"Here's your hat," Fujin now said, handing him the worn black accessory.

The outlaw almost looked sad putting it on his head. "I don't know how the kid found it," he bitterly chuckled. "That girl…She probably stole it from Reiko when…well, when she escaped," he delicately finished his sentence, not wanting to dredge up that ever-present elephant in the room again.

"This must be one of the _iwanas_ that Rowena gave to the children," Kenshi deduced. Before she departed their company, hurrying towards Tlachtga, the Hydromancer had told them how she gave Takeda and Olivia supplies to help them make it through the desert, including two beasts of burden to ride, making their journey easier.

"Well, Olivia obviously won when this monster attacked them," Anya said, stifling worried tears. "It probably just knocked them off and it ran away. We just have to search around, is all."

Kailyn sympathetically patted her shoulder and kissed her temple. "I am certain you are right," she told her. "This fight could not have happened very long ago."

Not waiting for permission, Hanzo charged towards the worm, looking for some clue that could tell them the kids' whereabouts. Once more, the others followed, also searching. As it turned out, they didn't have to search for long. On the other side of the worm, there was a massive sinkhole leading fifty feet down into growing darkness. Upon closer inspection, it looked as if the monster had inadvertently caused it by attacking a lone stone island in the middle of the sea of sand, and it had opened up the hole, which seemed to be part of a network of tunnels, into the earth.

"They went down here," Kenshi declared, lightly touching his temples. "I can still see their energy imprints. They went into that tunnel." He pointed to a dark tunnel at the bottom of the pit. Then he frowned, concentrating further.

"God _dammit_!" Erron cursed, shaking his head in barely repressed fury.

"What's wrong?" Anya asked him, frowning.

"I _told_ that girl not to go underground!"

"I don't think they intended to," Hanzo told him. "It looks like they were pulled under during the battle with the sandworm."

"I don't even care," the gunslinger hissed. "She should've gotten them out of there with her powers. I told her it was dangerous. That kid may have just signed her own death warrant."

"What's down there?" Kuai Liang now demanded to know.

"Yurei," Fujin answered for Erron. "Angry spirits that will do anything in their power to lead a person to suicide. Who knows? Maybe they, not the sandworm, caused the sinkhole. They're very powerful."

Anya scoffed at that, not wanting to believe her daughter could succumb to something as silly as a ghost story. "Olivia's too strong to kill herself," she argued. She looked at Kuai Liang to back her up, but his face had taken a worried expression, far greater than any he'd seen so far. "Tell them," she urged him, her face turning red with anger that masked growing fear.

"Ahn…" he trailed off, his voice uncertain and sad.

Tears sprang to her eyes and she stubbornly shook her head. "No, my baby is _stronger_ than that!" she shouted.

"If you face those things with even the slightest bit of guilt in your heart, you're gonna die," Erron quietly told her. "Both those kids, but especially her, have plenty of things to feel guilty for."

"Well, there's nothing saying that they actually ran into anything down there," she insisted.

"That's not true," Kenshi now spoke, his face still contorted into a deep frown. "They're both still alive for now. But they're not alone. Someone…no, _something_ is leading them down." He looked up, now facing them. "They're both in grave danger."

* * *

 **Author's Note: I wanted to let you all know that the underground encounter was inspired by _The Forest_ , a largely mediocre and predictable horror movie. However, the scene where the girl falls into the pit creeped me the hell out, and it inspired Olivia and Takeda's new dilemma, which I'd been wanting to do for a while but had no idea how I should execute it. Also, their interpretation of the yurei inspired what "Bi-han" is trying to do.**

 **Esha Napoleon, thanks!**

 **PinkRedRose2, I'm definitely the queen of the cliffhanger. I love teasing you all. ;)**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, it can refer to _any_ giant sandworm creature, be it the one in _Return of the Jedi_ , the ones in _Beetlejuice_ , the ones in _Dune._ Like, I just imagined a giant worm. **

**JLord 37, well, as things would have it... ;)**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, maybe Livy _will_ introduce Takeda to a certain Miss Briggs. We'll see ;) I like that you called Olivia a guerrera. That's so true. She's got to learn to be her own savior, and not rely on others to sweep in just in the knick of time. **

**ROCuevas, thanks!**

 **Hell-on-Training-Wheels, I'm still waiting for you to spam my Tumblr with pics of the Graboids ;) Maybe that could be the theme of our next GIF war LOL Oh, so close. Reiko popped up and basically said, "Surprise, bitches!" I had to change the previous chapter's title because it felt more appropriate for _this_ one. **

**Reptaliator, I get what you're saying, but I still structure the chapters how they need to be structured. If that means the kids come first in the lineup, then that's where they'll be. If not, I have a good reason for it, and I won't deviate. Now, as to your second review...Yes, because you're a guest, I have to approve every review you make. So I've seen them all. I think I was very fair to Reptile when I killed him. I think I showed him as a victim of circumstance more than anything. But that brings me to a point that I've never had the chance to make since you don't have a profile, but one I've been anxious to make. I remember vividly how you corrected me on Reptile's name. In _Frostbitten_ , when I did that chapter where Onaga kills him, I called him Aepep after an Egyptian god. You were very quick to jump my case about how that's not his name, Syzoth is. Okay. But here's the thing. I wrote _Frostbitten_ several years before MKX came out and we first learned what his name was in canon. At that time, he was just Reptile. So I found the best name I could to describe him. You did something similar with my take on Kotal Kahn. I wrote his introduction before we really knew anything about him save his name. My friend, Obelisk-of-Light, and I, discussed long and hard how we imagined he would behave. It was a gamble, I admit, but one based on his "Blood God" mode. I also admit that I want to go back and revise that part so it's more true to the story we know, but editing is a time-consuming job, and I have a life. In short, because of the things I've done in each story, none of the characters, including him, will be canonically perfect. So I would appreciate it, in the future, if you take things like that into consideration before you try to correct me. I'm well aware of how it's supposed to be canonically. The things I write are _my_ interpretation of the events we know. If you don't like how I treat the Tarkatans and the Zaterrans, if you truly believe I'm being prejudiced against them, might I kindly suggest that you create your own profile and write your _own_ stories? **

**Lightrunner, aw, you're too sweet! I think Olivia's feelings towards her father are very complicated, but I think after this chapter, she's going to realize how much she can't live without him. ;)**

 **iceangelmkx, oh, you're absolutely fine. I know you were having personal things, so I completely understand. I'm glad you're here now! To answer your question about why Shang Tsung targeted Erron, I made it so Erron will never know. But in my head, it's because Shang Tsung knew how good Erron was at killing. See, whether Erron thought so or not, he _did_ have a reputation, and it got his attention. He thought Erron could be turned into an ample enforcer for the Emperor. Erron just needed that one little push to convince him that he'd be better off living in Outworld. I hope that's a sufficient answer! Like I said, Erron will never know why. But that's the story going on in my head canon. **


	31. Sadness

**Author's Note: For this chapter, I was partially inspired by the song, "Swamps of Sadness," from _The Neverending Story_ OST, which you can go look up on YouTube if you're so inclined, and again, also the movie, _The Forest_. I'm sorry if this chapter feels awkward or clunky. I tried, but deep introspection is not my forte. For that, I refer you to en-lumine! **

* * *

The adults stood around in complete silence at Kenshi's ominous declaration. They needed to help the kids, Erron knew, but it was taking too long. It ought to be happening now, instantly, but it wasn't. They had to come up with a plan first, and none of them seemed to know how to do this. Kailyn and Morgan just stood beside Anya, all three women wide-eyed, the Healer nervously biting the back of her hand, pale as a ghost. Hanzo was peering into the hole, and beside him, Kenshi was pressing his fingers to his temples, concentrating. Alex and Tomas were scouting around the edge of the hole, looking for a way down. But Kuai Liang knelt on both knees and leaned forward, calling down. "Olivia!" he yelled, and wouldn't stop. "Olivia!" He was shouting, bellowing so loudly for his daughter that Erron thought he'd wake the dead, but even so, it was hard to hear his voice clearly over the thundering echoes the noise produced. Finally, recognizing the futility of this, the Cryomancer stopped.

Darkness. Silence.

But then, after a few long seconds, Kuai Liang broke it again and said, "I'm going down to get them." He wiped his teary eyes and then stalked around the rim of the sinkhole, looking down.

"Absolutely not," Fujin scolded him. "None of Earthrealm's Champions are going down there for any reason. It's too dangerous."

"I don't believe I asked for your permission, you pompous-"

"What about an _Outworld_ Champion?" Erron interrupted the Cryomancer. He took a step towards the Wind God as all eyes now fixed on him. His hands rested on his holsters, on the butts of his revolvers. It was a comforting feeling.

"You, Erron?" he asked.

"It makes sense, don't it?" he drawled. "I know my way around down there. Had the unfortunate luck of findin' myself in these tunnels once before. I won't get lost like these tenderfeet you got workin' for you."

"I don't know what 'tenderfeet' means, but I hope for your sake it's a compliment," Hanzo growled.

"I'm going with you," Kuai Liang stubbornly declared before the outlaw could respond to the Shirai Ryu.

"No, you ain't," Erron argued as he sternly crossed his arms. "I ain't as vulnerable to those monsters as you are. You'd die in a heartbeat."

"If my _daughter_ can do it-"

"There ain't no guarantee she's even alive anymore," he bluntly replied. He glared into the Cryomancer's cold, sapphire eyes, noting the sudden anguish. Erron wasn't sorry for causing it. It was a very real possibility and it needed to be said. "Look, pal, you've got far too much guilt over what you did to that girl. If these spooks get their hands on you – and they _will_ – they're gonna have a field day with you. They'll drive anyone with guilt in their heart to suicide. So it ain't a good idea. Trust me. I am better suited to dealin' with their shit than you."

"How?" Kenshi now challenged. "And why should we trust you?"

Erron shrugged. "Trust me or don't. I don't rightfully care. But I've tangoed with those things before. I know the secret to not bein' coerced into dyin'. You idjits don't. And if I die, you ain't lost nothin'."

"You made it out before," Anya mumbled, her voice choking on tears as she looked into the hole with an expression of fear. Erron vaguely wondered if she was afraid of what was down there, or more afraid that Olivia would never return _because_ of what was down there. "How?"

"It's like I said," he told her. "I should've died several times over by now. Shang Tsung's spell kept me alive when I had no right to." He now looked from her to Kenshi to Kuai Liang. "I stumbled into a cave near here once, a very long time ago when I still worked for Shao Kahn. I learned a lot about those damn things. And I am tellin' you all that I'm the best chance your kids have got." He scoffed. "Now, I ain't askin' any of your permission. I'm goin'."

"I agree," Fujin now said with a veiled smirk.

The gunslinger looked at him in surprise. "Well, good," he said, clearing his throat. He then loaded fresh bullets into his guns before nodding towards the east. He wished he had some sand bombs on him. Last time he went through the caves, the blinding flashes of light had helped him. "These tunnels head towards the mountains," he explained. "They veer slightly south before turnin' east again. There's a cave mouth in the foothills near that pass. It's where I stumbled in by mistake." He pointed to the mountain chain in the distance, and specifically to the low, v-shaped gap in between. "Head that way. I'll find you there. Give me a day. If I ain't out by then, keep heading towards Z'Unkarah."

"And if you don't find Olivia or Takeda?" Kuai Liang now grumbled, clearly unhappy with this plan. His face was a seething, red tomato. Erron suspected the Grandmaster would argue more save for the promise he made to the group about not letting his impulsivity get the better of him.

"One way or another, I'll find them," Erron said. He reassuringly patted the Cryomancer on the shoulder. Now he snapped his fingers at Fujin. "Give me a lift down, you old windbag."

The Wind God raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing. He quickly conjured a small torch in his hands and then shoved it into the other's hand. Then he tightly grabbed the gunslinger by the vest and slowly floated to the bottom of the sinkhole with him in his grip. He didn't stay long; as soon as the outlaw's boots scraped the sand-covered floor, he'd jetted to the surface once more. It would seem that even gods wouldn't go where Erron would.

"Please hurry," Anya called as his eyesight adjusted to the darkening light. "Olivia and Takeda…they may not have much time."

"Oh, I aim to," he reassured her, eyeing the dark passageway ahead in trepidation. He exhaled, wondering just what in the hell he'd gotten himself into, and finally shook his head and ventured towards the shaft. "Those damn kids are really makin' me earn my money, ain't they?" he muttered to himself as the darkness swallowed him whole.

* * *

The passageway was shadowy and nearly black, but almost immediately, in a manner that almost bordered on precognitive, Bi-han took an abrupt turn to the right and found a narrow hill that wound down deeper into the earth at a nearly treacherous angle of descent. Even with his tiny flashlight guiding the way, Olivia could barely see her hand in front of her face through the tears and darkness. Like a clumsy blind child, she stumbled her way forward, not knowing where she was going. The heaviness in the air pressed in on her from all sides now. She couldn't breathe.

"Uncle," Olivia sniffled, wiping her runny nose on the back of her hand, "I need to stop. Please. I'm so tired."

He didn't answer her and only silence followed, a silence more fearsome than the whispers she imagined before, so she trudged along in spite of her exhaustion just to avoid irritating him. She had to feel her way along the damp wall with her hands. And then a cold blast of air raced around them. The bulb in the flashlight flickered, and for a moment the young Cryomancer panicked, not wanting to get caught in the bowels of the earth without a light. But soon, it glowed steadily again, and she let out an audible sigh of relief.

She didn't remember much of the time that passed thereafter. She didn't have much of an internal clock, but she expected it was sometime after dark, given the approximate time when she and Takeda fell down the sinkhole. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was being chased by some groping horror that always seemed like it was about to reach out and grab her. An unseen foe came at her like the hushed shadow-sound of many feet. She stumbled on until she was gripping the walls for support and certain this heavy dread would crush her heart; she _had_ to get out of this place lest it drive her insane, or worse, _kill_ her.

 _But why?_ her nagging voice of self-doubt asked her. _Who will you go to when you get free? Your mother? She called you a slut! And don't forget, she let your father send you to Japan. She could've stopped him, but she didn't. Obviously, she didn't care about you. And your father? He gave up on you a long time ago, even before you slept with Reiko and killed that Edenian. That's why he sent you away, isn't it? He didn't want to deal with you anymore. You were too much for him to take. You weren't his good little girl anymore, so he didn't want you. Nobody wants you, Olivia. Not even Alex. You broke his heart, Olivia. So why would he want to take you back? Even Grammy Maggie wouldn't take you. If your mother's reaction to you having sex was bad, you know Grammy would absolutely lose her shit. No, nobody wants you. So where will you go? Who will you go to?_

Olivia grudgingly admitted to herself that she didn't even know. Her family had completely abandoned her. The thought of her various family members rejecting her one by one wounded her, but it was her father's betrayal that hurt the worst. In his shame, he'd disowned her. With his power, he'd cast her out of the Lin Kuei. At the thought, she drowned in sadness. True, she had imagined that she'd leave the Clan to punish the Grandmaster _and_ everyone who supported him, if and when she got out of this hellhole called Outworld. But that would have been _her_ choice, so it was okay. But to be told she was no longer wanted, no longer loved? That she could leave and go wherever she damn well pleased because the Grandmaster no longer cared? It was like a slap in the face.

And she realized then that her declaration to leave the Lin Kuei and venture out on her own was nothing more than a cry for attention, the childish tantrum thrown by a spoiled daughter looking to get her family to beg for her forgiveness. She had _wanted_ them to grovel for her to stay, and just to prove that they loved her. But they had called her bluff before she even raised the stakes, so there would be no begging this time. Only abandonment, and perhaps too her family's relief at her departure.

Olivia began to cry again, but quietly so as not to annoy her bitter uncle. He walked like a ghost ahead of her, gliding easily over the rough obstacles through the cave passage, his body one with the darkness. He had paid her no attention since he'd found her and Takeda beneath the sandworm. That hurt too. He'd always been gruff and brusque with her, from the time she was little, but at least he _acknowledged_ her existence. The fact that he showed no concern for her – hell, he didn't even seem aware of her – twisted the knife deeper in. So the tears flowed harder, so hard, in fact, that she felt certain she'd dry into dust and blow away completely.

Memories tortured her as she struggled through the tunnel. Like dominoes falling up, her brain flashed through images of Reiko's hands racing all over her, touching her in all the right ways, and yet ways that made her hate herself even more than she already did. It was disgusting, she knew, _liking_ what he did, even just a little bit. Pleasure had never been her intention. Escape was the only thing that mattered. But pleasure _had_ come, whether she wanted it to or not, all while poor Alex was going out of his mind with worry for her, faithfully searching for her to rescue her like a knight in shining armor.

Time then wound backwards to a terribly wounded Erron shoving his beloved guns into her arms right before she abandoned him to Reiko. People he'd trusted – people he'd _loved_ – had sold him out and nearly got him killed, she knew. She cared about him, and she had wanted to be different than his so-called friends of yesteryear, had wanted to fight for him when the General came to the oasis to reclaim his prizes. But God, Erron was so wounded by the Strega, and she was just so scared. Without her powers, she was afraid of everything. So she'd run, as fast as she could in the opposite direction. She was a coward. And Erron had died because of it.

Now she saw the man she'd killed. No, the man whose brains she bashed in with a tree branch. She could've just knocked him out, couldn't she? There was no reason he had to die. And what if he'd had a family? A wife and children? Friends and family who loved him? Maybe he had a dog that kept watch for his return, waiting day by day for its master to come home, not understanding that the giant of a man never would. His life was not hers to take, she reminded herself. Of everything she'd done since arriving in Outworld, that was the only one that made her feel the burning heat of the Netherrealm prickling on her skin.

But it was her father she dwelled on the most, the man who taught her everything he'd known about Cryomancy. He was always so tickled she shared his powers, and he proudly gloated to her mother quite often about that fact. It was like an inside joke between them, Olivia remembered, a special secret shared by them and them alone. He had called her Livy, his little Livy, from the time she was born. But she'd ripped his heart right from his chest the moment she told him never to call her that again; she'd seen the anguish and confusion in his eyes, and took perverse joy in inflicting pain on him after he'd ruined her life with his overbearing nature. But it really wasn't so bad, was it, that name? When she thought of him turning his back on her forever, she let out a shuddering sob, aching inside to hear him call her Livy just once more.

 _You are such a disappointment to me._

 _You're nothing but a slut!_

 _I wish you'd never been born!_

 _I'm sending you away._

A cacophony of voices rang through her ears, overlapping, whispering and chattering, taunting and mocking, and so she inwardly screamed for them to shut up, and she covered her ears to block out the noise, but they ignored her and wouldn't stop, and now the voices shrieked at her, like nails on a chalkboard, and the memories flashed brighter through her head, ripping her heart to pieces, and she wailed for the Elder Gods to help her, for _Himavat_ to help her, but there was no answer, never any answers, and now the tears came harder, and she started choking on the relentless emptiness in her heart, and the pleas for forgiveness sang from her soul like a dirge, but she heard nothing but silence and her own quiet tears slipping down her cheeks, and suddenly she wanted to die-

"We'll rest here," Bi-han suddenly declared. His gruff voice never shifted in tone or cadence, which was eerie to her, and it jarred her from her downward spiral.

There was a soft tinkling of water, a faint sound like a pebble plopping into a pond, rippling outward. Olivia blinked. She dully realized that they'd emerged in a larger cavern with a sheer drop-off to their immediate right; the cliff seemed to drop down to the depths of hell. A shimmering mist hung spookily in that chasm, shining like pale, ethereal silver that just barely illuminated the chamber above. Following her uncle's lead, Olivia quickly sat down against a boulder, watching as he used his powers to squeeze a stirring Takeda back into unconsciousness. The sudden jolt of cryogenic energy to his arteries knocked him back out instantaneously.

The two Cryomancers then sat in silence – a deafening silence that made Olivia want to hurl herself into the chasm nearby. Finally, though, Uncle Bi-han slowly turned to look at her. His movement was slow and creepy in its robotic jerkiness. He almost seemed like an animatronic puppet at Disneyworld. And when he gazed at her, his blue eyes were vacant, with the pupils dilated so large that they appeared black. Goosebumps exploded on her skin, prompting her to look away in terror.

 _It's just this cave and the crap Erron told you about it_ , her inner voice of reason declared. _It's freaking you out_.

"Well?" he asked as her heart pounded in her chest.

"Well, what?" she bitterly replied, trying to center herself.

"Well, aren't you going to ask me how long it's going to be before we're out of here?"

Olivia shook her head no, careful not to meet his uncanny gaze. "If you knew the answer, you'd have said so already," she declared. His question struck her as odd. Bi-han wasn't one for playing games. She meant what she'd said; if he knew, he'd have already told her. He wouldn't wait for her to ask. She wondered if he was testing her somehow, for some reason, but something deep inside insisted that wasn't the case.

"You broke your father's heart, you know," he now said. "You were his great legacy, his pride and joy. His firstborn child and his _only_ Cryomancer. He meant to make you his heir, Olivia. Someday, he wanted _you_ to become the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei. So everything he's ever done, every rule he's ever made, every lesson he's ever taught you, was all for you. And you just squandered it, you spoiled little brat. You blew it big time. You disgust me."

The eighteen-year-old grimaced and then gathered her knees protectively to her chest. _I'm sorry!_ she screamed in her head again, to whom she did not know. At the thought, she began sobbing once more, only this time, she couldn't make herself do so quietly. The hot tears flowed through her fingers and wet her loose desert pants around the knees.

"I-I-I j-just…w-w-want to go h-h-home," she stuttered, trying to catch her breath.

"You're no longer welcome there," he cruelly replied. Though the Cryomancer couldn't see it, he looked largely indifferent to the pain he was causing her. "Maybe the Shirai Ryu will keep you. They're dishonorable dogs. You'd fit right in."

"B-But Takeda…hates me," she choked out.

"Maybe you should sleep with him too," he shot back.

Olivia bawled into her knees for the duration of their stay, never stopping once in the half an hour they rested. All she wanted was for her daddy to forgive her and love her again like he used to. God, they'd been such good friends once upon a time. He'd read to her every night, and sometimes he'd even make up stories for her, if he didn't tell her about his very real adventures fighting alongside the Earthrealm Champions. She loved the way he told them; he added sound effects and jumped off her bed to demonstrate how he'd looked in a given situation. He practiced different voices for each character, and he was funny, much to her delight.

And then, every time she'd hurt herself in training, whether she could walk or not, he'd tenderly scoop her into his arms and carry her to the infirmary where her mother could treat her.

And he snuck her out of her classes so they could go play in the snow.

And whenever her mother had to travel to Outworld, he'd let her and the other kids pile into bed with him so they'd feel safe. Or, at least he did until they got too old for it.

And on her birthday every year, save for this most recent one, he had made her breakfast, specifically yummy cheese Danish that Grammy Maggie taught him to make just for that purpose.

And he'd even taught himself how to braid her hair so that when her mother was away, she didn't have to go to class with her long hair in her face.

But the best thing about him, Olivia decided, was his hugs. They completely belied his cold, frosty demeanor. His arms were big and strong, and whenever they wrapped around her body and pulled her close, she never felt more warm and secure. She was invincible, sheltered by his fortress of a body. She was safe. She was loved. And what she wouldn't give right now to run into his arms like a little girl, into that tight protective embrace that assured her that her place in his world would never falter. She'd let him call her Livy again, she'd never ask to leave the Temple even for a break, she'd always do what he said without argument. Just _please_ , God, don't let him ever stop loving her.

 _He already has_ , that nagging self-doubt reminded her again.

After only a brief rest, Olivia, Bi-han, and an unconscious Takeda started on their way again, dim figures in the gloom. Her uncle walked in front as he had before with the peacefully sleeping teenage boy draped over his shoulder like a shawl. Following them, grim and forlorn, walked Olivia. The passage Bi-han led her in twisted around and then began to descend. It went steadily down for a long time before it finally leveled off again and spilled into a dimly lit corridor where the older Cryomancer's flashlight bounced off the smoother walls. In the light, Olivia caught glimpses of natural arches and other passages and tunnels sloping upward, or running steeply down, or opening dark on either side. It was bewildering beyond hope of remembering.

Then the girl gazed at Bi-han and felt even more unsettled than she had before, even though she couldn't understand why. Perhaps it was because he had a sleek quality to him, something slippery, his head constantly darting to and fro as if he was tracking a fly in front of his face. The movement was decidedly robotic and unnerving. But perhaps it was his behavior. He'd always been blunt and to the point with her, which oftentimes hurt her feelings. But he'd never been outright _cruel_. _This…this is something different_ , she started to tell herself.

"Uncle?" she squeaked at the realization, her voice hoarse, suddenly scared.

He finally swiveled his head back to look at her, and at that moment, Olivia noticed precisely what had been bothering her all along. The flashlight in the passageway formed shadows of everything it touched. Everything, except...

Bi-han smirked and nodded at her realization, and then his skin, which was momentarily consumed by a flickering line of orange fire racing across his body like the expanding edge of a lava flow, scorched black and turned the color of ash. It was a sharp contrast to the eyes that had faded from blue to a rheumy, diseased white. His face had also changed; lined with wrinkles, his cheeks hollow and framed by slicked back black hair, he now looked older than ever. His leathery, red lips pulled back into a vicious snarl, and he dropped Takeda onto the ground, laughing in an abundance of voices that emanated from his tainted soul. He was no longer Bi-han, but…Noob Saibot.

With a startled cry, Olivia staggered backwards, and then crashed to the floor when her feet tripped over a rock on the path. She landed hard on her back, knocking the wind from her lungs, but it didn't stop her powers from surging to the surface. Wasting no time thinking about her sore butt, she did a kip-up and formed a kori sword in his hand. Then she whirled around, looking for Noob, who had disappeared. His laughter, however, still bounced off the walls, echoing loudly in her ears.

Panting hard, frightened, Olivia turned around in a circle, waiting for the slightest sign of attack. Her kori sword trembled in one hand, and fog wafted around the other. She'd never seen her uncle as the demon, Noob Saibot, in person before. But many years ago, before his salvation at Raiden's hands, General Blade's intelligence agents had somehow managed to snap a picture of him with Quan Chi and the demonesses, Sareena and Ashrah. For whatever reason, the picture had been on her father's desk, and she'd seen it when she'd snuck into his office one day to look for candy. Uncle Tomas had caught her looking at it, and snatched it from her, shooing her from the office. Later, he father, who learned what she'd seen, sadly explained to her who the demon warrior in black truly was. The picture had frightened her, but that fear paled in comparison to the terror she felt now.

As she thought of that picture, something moved in the darkest shadows in the corridor, and she jumped. The dark shadow of her uncle's body slid across the wall like an oil slick, chuckling. He threw his hand out, clawing for her, and she yelped a shrill noise that caused dust to sift down upon her head. And then Saibot leapt into the air, diving straight towards Olivia, almost startling her onto her ass a second time. But a split second before he tackled the young Cryomancer, he dove into a large, black puddle and vanished in the floor of the passageway.

 _Get out of here!_ her inner voice screamed.

She didn't have to be told twice. She snatched the flashlight from the floor and then the frayed rope that bound Takeda, and dragged him back in the direction they came. She had barely taken a few steps when the flashlight started to die, so she hurried faster, huffing and crying through panicked tears. Soon, it winked out altogether, and the darkness closed in around them, enveloping them. Even the thought of Noob Saibot waiting in the tunnel ahead for them only made her hesitate for a microsecond, and she bolted up it as fast as she could considering her burden.

Once, Olivia stumbled when she tripped on a rock in the darkness, bounced off the wall of the shaft, and landed on Takeda's chest. Quickly, she struggled to push herself up and away, but it was difficult in the darkness to find her bearings. Nothing was where it ought to be; she kept reaching out with her hands, expecting to find the ground or one of the walls, but hitting open air instead.

Finally, she managed to rise to her knees, then pull back into a crouch. There was a wall behind her, and one before her, but to her right she could sense open space: the long shaft, cutting its way into the earth beneath the desert. Once again, there was a current of cold air pouring forth from it, but something more, too, some sense of pressure, of a presence watching. Olivia spent a moment straining to peer into the darkness, to make out whatever shape or form might be lurking within it, but there was nothing there, of course, just her terror fashioning ghosts, and finally she managed to convince herself of this even though she _knew_ that Noob Saibot was on the loose.

 _Calm down. You're okay_ , she reassured herself, trying to steady her uncontrolled panting.

But was she? She spent a moment assessing this, tallying up the various pains that her body was beginning to announce. She must've banged her chin because it felt as if she'd been punched there, and her lower back had definitely registered the fall. But it was her left knee that called out most aggressively for attention. There was a tight, tearing sensation just beneath her kneecap, accompanied by an odd feeling of dampness. Olivia groped with her hand and found a large, flat bit of stone embedded there. It was about the size of a playing card – petal-shaped and gently concave – and it had neatly sliced through her pants, burying itself deep in her flesh. She braced herself now, trembling and clenching her teeth, then pulled the stone free. She could feel the blood seeping down her shin, strangely cool and lots of it, her tabi boot growing spongy with it.

 _It doesn't matter_ , she thought. _I'm okay_. It was the sort of empty reassurance a parent would give to a child who was afraid of the monster in the closet, yet she couldn't help repeating it to herself nonetheless, even as she cried over her situation. It was too dark, and she was hopelessly lost, and there was that cold air pouring across her from the shaft ahead, and that watchful presence, and her left boot was slowly filling with blood. _I'm gonna die_ , she thought. And then, again: _It doesn't matter._

Olivia had the sudden sense, in the darkness, of a hand touching the small of her back. She jumped, almost screamed, but caught herself. It was just the wall. She must've leaned into it as she tried to get her bearings and find the end of the rope, creating the impression that it had reached out and touched her, cradling her at the base of her spine, almost caressing her. It was impossible to keep her bearings here; she was as good as blind.

The skin on her leg now prickled as if someone were caressing it obscenely, and even though she lurched forward to escape the unseen fingers, it still wasn't quick enough for her comfort. It was creepy here, and it made her shiver. She didn't like it, and she choked up on the rope binding Takeda as she pressed on quicker. When she moved, though, there was a sharp, tearing pain from the cut in her knee, and it started to bleed again.

Olivia ignored it and pressed forward. Now and then, she thought she could see things in the darkness – floating shapes, balloon-like, faintly luminescent. They seemed to approach, then hover right in front of her before slowly withdrawing again. Some had a bluish green tint; others were a faint yellow, almost white. These had to be tricks her eyes were playing on her, she knew, physiological reactions to the immense darkness, but she couldn't help herself. Whenever they appeared to come too close, she'd reach for them with one hand so that she could try to touch them. As soon as she'd lift her hand, though, the shapes would vanish, only to reappear at some new spot, farther away, and resume their slow, gently bobbing approach.

The cold air coming from the open shaft ahead of her wasn't constant. Sometimes it would stop, seem to hold its breath, and the temperature would begin to rise. Olivia would start to sweat harder, her muscles screaming in exhaustion as she dragged Takeda along, and then, abruptly, the cold air would return. This constant fluctuation unsettled the Cryomancer, frightened her more, made the darkness seem threateningly animated. Each time the draft paused, she felt as if the way ahead had been blocked by someone – or something – a presence that was hesitating just in front of her, examining her as she limped through the passage. Once, she even thought she heard it sniffing, taking in her scent. Olivia gulped and tried to convince herself that her senses were playing tricks on her again.

 _You're okay. You're okay. You're okay._

There was that pressure against Olivia's back once more, a hand touching her. Her heart leapt into her throat even as she struggled to reassure herself. _It's just the wall_ , she lied to herself, blinking back hot tears as she shook even harder. The darkness had moved somehow, crept toward her, drawn by her warmth, perhaps. She shivered, frightened but trying to muster through, trying hard not to think of the darkness like that – something with a mind of its own, something sentient…Olivia wanted to run, to bolt like a horse through the passage, abandoning Takeda, screaming like a madwoman. Only her sheer force of will kept her clutching the end of the rope, tugging him along.

Olivia rushed forward, hurrying to escape this pitch-black maze which would be, in all likelihood, her eventual tomb. _Don't think like that_ , she admonished herself, wiping away tears. A steady stream of cold air now pushed against her. The Cryomancer felt a new moment's terror as the ceiling dropped low enough for her to have to crouch as she moved forward. The darkness pressed in on her even harder, constricted her somehow with each step she took, as if the walls and ceiling of the tunnel were shifting inward. Soon, her knees bounced against her chin, and she was crawling, fighting to pull Takeda along with her. She didn't remember this from earlier, and she shook, whimpering now as the tunnel became as tight as a coffin. If she hadn't been so desperate to get away from Noob Saibot, if Takeda wasn't blocking the way back, and turning around was an impossible feat at this juncture, she would've turned and fled.

Finally, though, she could sense a wall somewhere ahead – even in the darkness, even without being able to glimpse it yet – somehow she knew that the shaft came to an end in another thirty feet or so. She moved faster now, desperate to get free of this claustrophobic tunnel, her eagerness to escape working to push her onward even though her shoulders and back burned from dragging Takeda. She could see the wall now, or something like it – a shadow materializing in front of her, a blockage.

"I didn't say you could leave," a voice echoed around her, followed by the thousands of laughs contained within Noob Saibot's form.

Suddenly, something shot out from the darkness and clamped itself around her wrist, yanking her forward, prompting her to scream. Whatever had a hold of her moved so quickly, it seemed to hiss like a snake. Not far ahead, over what ought to have been floor but was open darkness instead, it pulled Olivia over the edge of a sheer drop, barely holding her up. She flailed her arms as if trying to fly, and grunted and screamed, her heart beating hard in her chest, thudding in between her ears.

"No!" she screeched. "No!"

A gust of wind blasted into Olivia's face, stirring her hair, disorienting her. Whatever held her was wiggling her body back and forth now, trying to pull her further over the edge. She fought to pull her wrists back, but stopped struggling when she realized she'd fall if she succeeded. Only her legs below the knees still touched the passageway behind, but the amount was gradually decreasing by the second.

Suddenly, there was the twinkle of a firelight emanating from a shaft below – from where it had come, she didn't have time to ponder – and it took several seconds for her eyes to adjust and focus on what they were seeing, what this darkness was, and why there was no floor here. It was the mouth of another shaft, dropping at least thirty feet straight down; the darkness kept it hidden from view. _A trap_ , she realized as the frightened tears flooded down her wounded cheeks. Noob Saibot had been herding her here, hoping she'd crawl into open air here, fall into the darkness. Olivia caught a glimpse of dirty white – _bones_ , she saw – and what might have been a skull staring up at her.

"Help me!" she screamed, but to whom, she didn't know. Only cruel laughter answered her.

The unseen hands now moved to her throat, clamping down like a vise around her neck as they yanked her completely over the side. She floated above the pit, now, suspended high in the air, her feet dangling down. Olivia gurgled and reached for her throat. She somehow felt cold digits like iron digging into the flesh. She fought to peel them off, but they would not budge, and she couldn't breathe. Her vision soon began to go black. Now panicking, certain her death was inevitable but still resisting it, her hands involuntarily flowed with blue cryogenic energy to save her.

In a move that bordered on instinct, a kori dagger now sprang into her palm. Quickly, she lifted it to her throat and began to dig at the fingers still holding her fast. Olivia winced when she felt the knife prick her own skin, but it didn't matter. She'd be completely unconscious in a minute if she didn't, and dead in two. The Cryomancer sawed at the invisible fingers, nicking herself a few more times. Her own blood dribbled down her neck, but still, she kept cutting away, trying to use the knife as a lever to get those fingers off.

* * *

It had taken Erron a few hours to find his way through the tunnels, but the sounds of screaming had finally led him to Olivia, who was at the pit where _everyone_ stupid enough to come down here ended up. And she was in trouble. He thrust his torch forward in time to see her fly off the ledge of a shaft above, and dangle there like a fish on a hook, choking, grasping for her throat. Above her, there was a flat ceiling. When the gunslinger craned his head backward, peering toward it, he could see the shadowed outline of a yurei, staring down at him with blank white eyes that unnerved even him. If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought the creature was… _laughing_.

And then, to Erron's horror, he saw Olivia plunge the tip of a kori dagger into her neck near her jugular vein and carotid artery, seemingly beginning to slit her own throat.

* * *

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, I hope being a Queen of the Mindfuck is a good thing LOL I think that, after this chapter, Olivia is gonna have a serious phobia of her uncle. But like you, I hope he shows up and opens a can of whup-ass. Maybe he will ;)**

 **Esha Napoleon, thanks!**

 **DarkAssassin15, yours may be the first ever drunk review I've gotten. I can't say for sure, though. There _have_ been times I've wondered. ;) You're right; I try not to pull punches in my stories, so Skarlet very well could be food for the Tarkatans. It's going to take a lot to bring her back from the hole in the gut. Unfortunately, "Bi-han" is not the product of Reiko's magic. I hope it was more apparent in this chapter that he's actually a yurei who took the form of someone Olivia knew just to push her over the edge. She could resist a monster, but her own family? That's much harder. **

**Hell-on-Training-Wheels, thank you! Yeah, if I lose my _cell phone_ for more than five minutes, I freak. I couldn't imagine losing one of my kids. So I'm trying to show the roller coaster of emotions that Anya is on. And yes, I knew you'd appreciate Erron reuniting with his hat. Was there ever any doubt that I'd give that subplot a happy ending? ;) **

**PinkRedRose2, the last chapter was my darkest chapter, even compared to the one back in _Frostbitten_ with the rat torture and waterboarding? ;) It _is_ pretty messed up, though, I'll give you that. I hated myself by the end of writing it. But anyway, I agree: Reiko's arrogance is his fatal flaw, and will be his ultimate downfall. **

**Jlord 37, thanks, though "Bi-han" is only an illusion and not the real deal.**

 **Juvenal, isn't that what _Ascension_ is? **

**ROCuevas, hopefully!**

 **en-lumine, LOL, that's what you get! But you know I love hurling obstacles at my characters. It makes you, my reader, root for them even more, and it makes their eventual victory that much sweeter. ;) I'm glad you thought I did that whole Olivia/Reiko thing well. I was really worried about it beforehand. It's always nice to know I pulled something controversial off. And, could it be said that Bi-han was as...wait for it...cold as ice? *rim shot*Anyway, thank you, and you have a fabulous 2017 as well :D**

 **reptaliator, yes, you've told me that you're afraid you don't know how, so that's why you don't write your own stories. But honestly, do you think I came out of a box like this? I've been writing since I was a little girl, and then I studied it rigorously in college. It took years of trial and error to get where I'm at, and a hell of a lot of hard work. There was no magic writing dust sprinkled on my head that said, "Poof! You're a writer now!" I had to work for it. And even still, I'm not perfect; I'm constantly learning and improving, and trying to shore up my weak spots. My point is that every writer has to start someplace. You're not going to be Shakespeare right out of the gate. Hell, _Shakespeare_ wasn't even Shakespeare right out of the gate. Do you know how many drafts of _Hamlet_ are floating around the world right now? If you try and fail, that's still a lot better than never trying at all. So I think you should try to write your own stuff. Will it suck at first? Probably. But you learn to write by doing. To answer your questions in other reviews, yes, Skarlet is dead, and she's probably going to stay that way unless I can figure out a plausible way to bring her back. Well, so few of the original characters remain in my stories because I'm loosely following MKX, but also because I never explored half of them to begin with. I probably won't do an MKX story, that's true; this is probably my final hurrah save for new tales for _Tales of the Lin Kuei_. It's really time for me to focus on my serious work, the stuff I can actually publish. I won't say never, but it's not very likely. But thank you for noticing my hard work. I appreciate your support, I really do :) **

**Lightrunner, cool, I will check out your story ASAP :)**

 **Symphonica666, no worries, I know life happens. No need to go all Catholic nun on yourself LOL This is how it usually goes; when someone falls behind on a story, that's when the story gets all kinds of crazy. But now you're all caught up and I hope this chapter delivered on the shock factor as well! And yeah, Erron and his hat are back together again. *sings _Reunited and it feels so good!_ * That hat is his one true love...after Sadie, that is. I'm touched that his back story had you in tears. It's kind of why he's a bastard now. Anyway, I hope you have a fantastic 2017 as well! **


	32. Ghosts

**Author's Note: I'm sorry if this update sucks. Life has been pretty busy lately, so I haven't had much time to devote to writing :p**

* * *

Erron had about two seconds to figure out what to do before Olivia killed herself completely; as it was, she was already losing way too much blood for his liking. It drained from her throat, smearing her neck, collarbone, and chest in gory red. At the speed of thought, one of his .45s was in his hand and he fired at the yurei on the ceiling, hoping the shot would break its hold over the girl if it accomplished nothing else. The noise was deafening in this cramped space. In a microsecond, the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling after it struck the spook, exploding in little sparks of color, before it jammed into the bedrock. The yurei, which bore a striking resemblance to Noob Saibot, screeched and retreated through a tarry puddle in the wall, and Olivia immediately tumbled down like a rag doll.

A sickening crunch filled the air when she landed, but it was only old bones snapping beneath her weight. An ancient layer of dust mushroomed through the air at the stirring. Erron wasted no time bolting through the cloud and to her side, already yanking a dark blue handkerchief from his pocket to stop the blood, which was streaming steadily from her throat. Thankfully, it wasn't spurting out like a hose under pressure, which would've meant she'd nicked her artery. But a jugular vein was almost as bad, and he needed to stop the bleeding _now_.

To his surprise, however, the young Cryomancer was _not_ happy to see him. When her eyes focused on his figure in the dim light, she screamed and then thrashed backwards, kicking herself through bones to get away from him. An ice ball whizzed towards his head, and he threw himself to the side to avoid getting hit.

"Get away from me!" she shrieked, sobbing, still gushing blood.

"It's me, kid!" he shouted as he ducked another ice ball.

"You're dead! You're not real! You're dead! Not real!" she chattered over and over, now flopping onto her tummy to army crawl through the pit of bones.

"Oh, to hell with this," he muttered under his breath as he saw her fresh blood glistening off yellowed skulls and broken femur bones. She didn't have much time left, he knew. Her color had already washed out and she was deathly pale in the eerie glow of light.

Quickly, he tackled her and flipped her on her back again. Shards of bones and bits of debris flew into the air with a hollow clatter. The gunslinger expected that under better circumstances, Olivia could've easily wrestled him off. But she was currently as weak as a newborn deer, trembling, frightened, and so he straddled her and pinned her flailing arms above her head where they could cause no trouble. He wasn't certain exactly how much Shang Tsung's spell would protect him against her powers, but he wasn't itching to find out. She screamed and bucked like a wild bronco beneath him, her core strength impressive, but it didn't take much to subdue her. When she was sufficiently restrained, he shoved the blue handkerchief against the cut on the side of her throat with his free hand.

"Easy, there, kid," he said in the same, soothing tone he'd always used to calm frightened horses. "You need to calm down now or you're gonna die."

"Let me go!" she squealed, writhing to get free.

Erron lost his temper. "You want me to blow a fuckin' hole in your head right here?" he yelled. "Right now? 'Cause I'll do it. It'll be a quicker way to die! Better for your parents than knowin' you killed yourself right before they found you."

That got her attention and she finally stopped fighting. Olivia looked up at him, her sapphire blue eyes puffy and swollen with tears. It didn't take a genius to see the fear there, the confusion. And she looked a hell of a lot worse for the wear. Bruises and bumps marred her pale face, especially around the ugly split in her lip and the handprint on her cheek. It looked as if someone had slapped her, and hard. But all of that paled in comparison to the tiny jagged gash in her throat soaking his handkerchief and staining her white shirt red. Most of it was superficial damage, but even though she'd just barely nicked the vein, and it looked small in comparison to the other injuries she'd sustained, that would be the thing that killed her. Erron Black wasn't prone to much in the way of pity, but when he looked on this young girl, he felt sorry for her. He sighed and released his iron grip on her wrists, and then he let his hand drift down to her hair, which he stroked with his fingers to calm her. She flinched, though, and squeezed her eyes shut, shaking like a leaf. She behaved as if he was going to murder or rape her.

"I ain't gonna hurt you, kid," he told her, mildly indignant that she was acting like one of the fearful lowlifes the Kahn had sent him to deal with. To prove his sincerity, he crawled off her waist, careful to keep his handkerchief pressed to the side of her throat. "And I'm the real deal, alive and kickin'."

"Prove it," she challenged, the slightest bit of fire blooming through the fear.

He rolled his eyes and snorted. "You are the biggest pain in my ass since 1945," he growled.

Her eyes widened in surprise, but they were quickly flooded with relief. "Okay, then," she said in acceptance.

Erron now carefully peeled back the handkerchief to look at the damage. The bulk of the knife wound was already clotted up, but great globules of maroon-colored blood still steadily oozed through the nick. The blue cloth had long since turned black, sticky, and damp. "Shit," he drawled, sighing as he pressed it against the wound once more.

"I feel cold," she whimpered. She looked awful pale in the dim light.

"I ain't surprised," he said. "Slittin' your own throat has that effect, kid."

"It's just a scratch," she weakly argued.

Erron scoffed. "Like hell, you say," he frowned. "You cut open your jugular, kid."

Panic now bloomed in those sapphire eyes, and she tried to force herself to sit up. "What?" she cried, her voice hitting an octave only an old coon hound could've heard.

He abruptly shoved her back down. "Hold still, you hear?" he snapped. "We've gotta get the bleedin' stopped." He angrily shook his head. "This needs your momma's touch. Dammit!" He sighed, knowing he didn't have the time to get the girl to the surface. He estimated that she had maybe ten or fifteen minutes left before she bled out completely.

"She left me…" Olivia trailed off, her voice breaking into tears as she looked in defeat towards the ceiling.

He knit his eyebrows into a deep frown. "What the hell are you talkin' about?" he demanded to know. He vaguely wondered if the blood loss had left her delirious.

"Am I gonna die?" she now wondered out loud, her voice small and unsure.

"Not if I have any say in the matter," he stubbornly said, an idea coming to him. It was an old-school remedy that failed as much as it succeeded. He'd seen Mr. Tunstall do it to Dick once when the damned fool fell off his horse and caught his throat on a walking stick cactus. Same thing happened; a thorn had nicked the vein. John had managed to save him, but he could very well have failed. There was no guarantee that what Erron now had in mind would even work. But it was worth a shot. So he guided Olivia's hand to the handkerchief. "Hold it tight, kid," he ordered as he helped her hold it in place. "Don't let go."

"Where are you going?" she asked as he turned around and scurried towards his torch. Her voice rose an octave again. "Don't leave me!" She burst into fresh tears.

"Don't get your panties all in a bunch," he grumbled. "I'm only getting' the torch. I need the fire." He grabbed it and crawled back to her. She watched him in rapt interest as he quickly rolled a cigarette for himself with the tobacco and papers in his pouch. Then he lit it and took a couple of long drags to steady his own nerves. She wasn't gonna be no fan of his after this, he reckoned, but he didn't like the thought of carrying her corpse back to her parents. It sat ill in his belly, dredging up horrible memories of carrying his own babies to their graves.

"This is your brilliant plan?" she asked in disbelief as she watched him inhale deeply. "Smoking?"

"No," he coolly replied, blowing out a cloud of smoke and replacing her hand on her throat. " _This_ is my brilliant plan." As soon as he said it, he pulled the handkerchief away and then pressed the glowing red end of his cigarette into the steadily trickling wound. Startled, Olivia wailed and tried to pull away, but Erron firmly held her in place with his free hand. Her skin sizzled below the noise of her screams, the blood caramelizing, and in seconds, the scent of cooked meat wafted through his nostrils. When the noise faded, he pried the cigarette from the wound and took another drag while pressing the handkerchief to it once more.

"Now I think you'll live long enough to make it to your momma," he finally declared, deliberately ignoring the girl's loud caterwauling. "But keep holding that to your neck just in case." He clenched his cigarette between his lips and then helped her sit up.

To his surprise, the Cryomancer unexpectedly threw her arms around him and clung to him like he was a life preserver, sobbing into his shoulder. Her hot tears soaked through his vest, and he felt awkward, not entirely certain what he should do. His gut compelled him to wrap his own arms around her and let her cry it out, all while he reached around to keep the rag on the freshly cauterized wound. It was an awkward hug, but she didn't seem to mind; she was holding on to him like her life depended on it, like letting go meant her certain death, and crying so hard she could scarcely breathe. Feeling yet another swell of pity for this kid, he sighed and gently pressed her head to his chest like she was his own little girl.

"I just want to go home," she bawled, clinging more tightly to him as the bulk of his own body muffled the sound. She clutched his vest, the folds of cloth blooming between her fingers.

"I know," he said, patting the back of her head. "But if you don't get up and start whupping some ass, you ain't never gonna see your family again." His words were stern, but his voice was gentle.

"We're…we're gonna d-die down here," she choked and sputtered.

"Not if I've got anything to say about it," he stubbornly replied. He finally pulled away from her. "But we ain't out of the woods yet, kid. The yurei will be back, I'm sure. They weren't never ones for quitting so easily."

Erron now adjusted his rag, wadding it up in a new way and pressing the drier side into the wound. Thankfully, the bleeding had stopped. For now, anyway. He exhaled a sigh of relief. Then the gunslinger faintly smiled at her and then pushed on the handkerchief more firmly while he tucked a lock of her long, bloody hair behind her ear. She tiredly leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Where's Takeda?" he demanded to know.

"Up there," she mumbled, pointing to the shaft she'd fallen from. "He's unconscious. Something's wrong with him."

"How so?"

"I don't know," she said, her voice collapsing into fresh tears. "Reiko stabbed him and I thought he was going to die. We were trying to get away from the sand worm, and he barely made it. But then the ground collapsed…As soon as we hit the bottom, he was miraculously healed, but it was like he was possessed. He attacked me, and he was screaming something about going back to Reiko."

"So you knocked him out?"

Olivia shook her head no. "My uncle – well, who I _thought_ was my uncle – showed up and used his powers to knock him out. We've kept him asleep ever since."

"At least that explains why you two decided to ignore me about comin' down here," he grumbled. Now he looked up to the shaft, holding the torch high. It was about ten feet up, and the wall was too smooth to climb. "You're gonna have to help me, kid," he said. "I need some stairs if I'm gonna get him down."

Olivia nodded and then Erron helped her stand. While he propped her up to steady her – she was terribly weak and ready to collapse – she aimed her open palm at the wall beneath the tunnel and let her cryogenic energy flow from her fingertips to the floor. Frost curled up the walls in white tendrils, and the gunslinger heard the unmistakable sound of ice popping and crackling as it sprang into existence, spreading and expanding in size until it formed a thick base. The energy abruptly stopped and the Cryomancer flexed her fingers, breathing hard. But soon, her power flowed again, and she created a smaller tier on top of the first, and then a smaller one on top of that. In that manner, she formed a staircase only on level with the top of her head, but it was enough. Erron could now reach the shaft.

"Wait here," he ordered her.

She nodded and sat down on the pile of bones once more, holding his handkerchief to her throat again. Meanwhile, he had already started climbing the stairs. He stepped carefully. The ice was sturdy, but slippery, and the last thing he needed was to fall and break his neck. But he made it to the top without incident, and when he shined his torch inside the cave, he saw Takeda lying face-first on the tunnel floor, in a deep sleep as Olivia had said.

Erron climbed into the narrow shaft, barely able to fit, even on all fours, and moved towards the Shirai Ryu. He reached him within moments, and grabbed his shirt to pull him to the tunnel opening and the staircase beyond. The kid was out cold, and it was no wonder why; he'd heard rumors that Cryomancers could do this to people when – _if_ – they wanted to incapacitate them without killing them. Of course, it wasn't often that they felt charitable enough to spare someone. It just wasn't in their nature. He hadn't met too many Cryomancers – even in Outworld since they isolated themselves from the rest of the Realm – but those he _had_ met had been cold and this side of heartless, and thought as much about killing as they did about breathing. Erron was mildly surprised that Olivia wasn't like that. She didn't like Takeda none too well, and only tolerated him out of necessity, not compassion. But then again, her father wasn't like that either, so perhaps he'd imprinted his values on her more than she cared to admit. Who knew for certain? The only thing that mattered now was getting Takeda out of this tunnel.

Erron strained to inch along, but he was making progress, slow as it was. But then, suddenly, he couldn't pull anymore. He looked up to see if Takeda was stuck. In the dim light, dust rippled and shivered ever thicker, bunching and gathering. Suddenly, on top of the boy's body, a shape reared up, a solid man shape, dark and featureless save for the unusually large mouth and long fangs, with fingers like sharp claws. With a shrill screech, it leaped at him.

Startled, the gunslinger moved instinctively, shoving himself backwards, still dragging Takeda along, having no room to reach his guns. The yurei scuttled for him, viciously hissing and batting at his face with its long talons, scratching lines into his grizzled cheek. The ground abruptly vanished behind him, and he and the boy fell like sack of potatoes onto the icy stairway Olivia had made for him only minutes prior. Slippery and cold beneath his skin, he skidded across it and tumbled down each stair, each thud more painful than the last.

"Erron!" Olivia squealed as the yurei chased after him, leaping from the top stair onto the pit of bones.

The gunslinger, who'd rolled to his knees by this point, already had his guns in hand. He aimed and fired, and the bullet sliced through that dark figure. It exploded into a thick cloud of dust that slowly drifted over the ancient bones.

Others replaced it, though, black shapes rushing in from all sides, no two alike, but all with reaching claws. Erron had pulled Olivia to her feet by now, and she weakly danced her forms among them, weaving intricate patterns of snow and ice through the air, leaving delicate flakes floating behind. Erron used his guns, of course, guided as much by instinct as skill. The yurei died – or at least returned to dust – but there were a lot, and they were quick. Blood poured down his face. Red smeared across the Cryomancer's face too, and down her chest, adding a new layer of gore to the old. Far too many, and far too quick.

And then, Olivia gathered every ounce of condensation in the air to her, what little of it there was, and wove strands of cryogenic power around her that soon blasted blue energy towards her enemies. Shards of ice, sharp as glass, burrowed through the middle of each black shape. They exploded in clouds of dust that left the gunslinger coughing while she stepped before him and repeated her trick against his opponents. They were destroyed in the same fashion. As far as he could now see, dust settled from the air. The yurei were gone…for now.

Hacking and panting, Erron staggered towards her. "About damn time," he wheezed at her, but he wasn't angry. She looked at him with wide, blue eyes set in a ghastly pale face. She looked like a ghost herself. Olivia started to collapse, but he caught her, and held her up. As he did, he saw the dust settle on the bones, and it began to ripple.

"Erron?" she whimpered uncertainly, seeing it too.

"Run," he breathed. "We have to run."

"I don't think I can-" she began, but he abruptly cut her off.

"I can't carry both you and him," he barked at her. "So get your ass movin'."

She nodded and gripped the torch while he quickly retrieved Takeda's body, hefting it over his shoulder. The boy didn't so much as stir. Knowing the way out from the tunnels from here, he led the way, holding her hand with his so they didn't lose each other in the vast, underground maze. In single file, they sped for the exit, slashing at any lines of dust that seemed to be thickening, kicking at them, doing anything to keep them from coalescing. Olivia blew cold gusts of air from her lungs at them. Dispelled dust shivered back together immediately, even before it reached the ground now. They kept running, though, through the tunnels, bursting into a dim, sharp-shadowed light.

In this new chamber, a fully formed shape blocked the way, though shadows obscured its features. Erron let Olivia's hand go long enough to grab one of his .45s, and he aimed it at the figure, cocking back the hammer to shoot.

And then, a voice he thought about often but had long since forgotten, spoke to him. "Erron?" she said, the sound small and afraid. She stepped forward into the light, and the gunslinger's heart dropped into his stomach.

"Sadie," he breathed, his own voice barely audible. A tight ball of pain instantly bloomed in his throat. He grew lightheaded, and it took a moment for him to realize that it was because he'd stopped breathing altogether.

Her light blond hair was longer than when she'd died, though still not quite to her waist, and her dress, plain blue except for the narrow bands of white lace at the neck and wrists, would have suited the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, wearing her Sunday best to greet her tormented husband for the first time in a hundred and fifty-odd years. She looked exactly the same as Erron remembered her. Unbeknownst to him, a tear had betrayed him. It slid down his cheek, unnoticed.

"Yoo hoo," another familiar voice echoed around him. "Did you forget about me, boy-o?"

Another figure emerged to the left of Erron, and his heart sank even more when he recognized the newcomer. He'd never forget that face, oval, perpetually slack-jawed. Those blue eyes twinkled with mischief, as usual. He was the same person who'd accosted him in the ghost grass several days behind him, the one he'd shot to prove to Olivia it was just a spook. It was Billy.

"No," he muttered, knowing it was a trick, but getting sucked into the lie all the same.

"Erron?" Olivia asked uncertainly, her fear apparent.

Immediately, the gunslinger moved to train his gun on his old friend, but Billy was quicker on the draw this time. "Calm down," he said, aiming his Colt .44 on him. "Settle in 'cause we're gonna have a chat, boy-o."

Fearlessly, Erron lifted his own gun at his friend and glared. "No, we ain't," he growled. "What's done is done."

"You ain't leavin'," Billy smirked at him in that odious way that used to get under his skin.

"You ain't man enough to stop me," he said. When his old friend didn't relent, he said, "You know, I don't want to kill you again, but I _will_."

"You can't kill what's already dead," the Kid scoffed. When the gunslinger didn't relent, he now chuckled and lowered his gun. "Goddamn, Erron. It sure is good to see you."

"Not sure I can agree with you on that one, Bill."

"You should come with me," he grinned. "I'm goin' somewhere dangerous. You can keep me outta trouble."

"Billy, that is a full-time job, and I already got one," he replied, trying to hold his hands steady. He'd never admit it to a soul, but fear had crept into his heart.

"What about _me_ , Erron?" Sadie now spoke up, stepping towards him. Her face was as bright as the sun, just like he remembered it. "Will you come with me?" She held out her hand for him to take, the simple gold band on her ring finger glittering in the torchlight, catching his eyes. He'd given it to her on the day they'd got married.

He took a nervous step back. "No," he shook his head. "I…I can't," he said.

"But when will it be _our_ time?" she demanded to know. "It's been too long since you've held me. I miss you, Erron. Don't you miss me? Even just a little bit?"

He swallowed that ball of needles, but it was lodged in his throat, choking him. "Every day," he confessed, his voice barely a whisper, and that was true. More tears slid unnoticed down his face.

And then, as Sadie stepped closer to him, she wiped his face dry and began to sing in dulcet tones: "Darling I am growing old / silver threads among the gold / shine upon my brow today / life is fading fast away / But, my darling, you will be / always young and fair to me." She stepped within a breath of him and looked into his green eyes with her blue ones. "But, my darling, you will be / always young and fair to me." With that, she stood on her tiptoes, cupped his cheeks in her soft hands, and gently pressed her lips onto his.

The part of Erron that knew this was wrong immediately vanished. Exhilaration soared through him. He knew he missed Sadie something fierce, but he didn't precisely know how much until she was there, sucking on his lips in the same tender way that she always did, sweeping all the air from his lungs. Her lips were just so soft, so full, and the feel of them on his own set his whole body on fire, aching with need for her.

"Please come with me," she whispered when she finally pulled away. "It's the least you can do after you let that animal kill me. Let him kill our babies."

It was like a slap in the face, the first one in many years. "Oh, God," he trembled, struggling to fight back the deluge building inside of him. He dropped Takeda to the ground and collapsed onto his knees before his wife. "I didn't let him kill you," he mumbled, looking up at her through blurry vision. "I thought he was Billy. I thought…"

"You made a deal with the Devil," she now hissed, her eyes accusatory. "You could be with me, and EJ, and Daisy Mae now, Erron. But you traded that for his spell. For _money_! How could you? Didn't you love us?"

"I didn't know," he now begged, unable to contain the sobbing any longer. He buried his face in his hands to hide his shame. "You've got to believe me, Sadie. I didn't know."

"You killed me to pay your debt to that demon sorcerer," Billy now hissed, prowling towards him as well. "I saw the look in your eye before you killed me, Erron. You were… _excited_. Don't tell me you didn't enjoy takin' me down. The man who put down Billy the Kid. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

"You left me to die after Lincoln and you expect me to care about killin' you?" the gunslinger bitterly shot back, looking up with soggy eyes. "I thought you butchered my family!"

"That doesn't sound like denial to me," he smirked again.

"Go to hell," he snarled, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

"Seems to me that I owe you some payback, Erron," the Kid told him.

"That ain't fair, Billy," he now said. "You know why I thought it was you."

"Fair?" he bristled. "Well, what _is_ fair? Some trees flourish. Others die. Some cattle grow up strong. Some are dragged off by wolves. Some men are born rich enough and dumb enough to enjoy their lives. But life ain't never _fair_!"

Erron's upper lip curled into a sneer. "That was beautiful, Billy. You always were a mighty fine speaker."

At that, Billy punched him across the jaw, knocking him onto all fours while Olivia yelped his name. While stars swirled through the gunslinger's vision, his old friend carefully lifted his boot and dragged the spur across his cheek, splitting it clean open. Erron howled as blood poured from his fresh wound.

"Now I'm gonna kill the three of ya," the Kid declared.

"Now why would you want to go and do a thing like that?" he grunted, trying to stand. Billy promptly stomped him down.

"Sport, I guess," he shrugged.

"Well, that's as good a reason as any, I reckon," he said.

"It won't hurt," Sadie now spoke. "Dyin'. It'll be quick. Then you and I can be together forever. You can see our babies too. EJ always wonders when you're gonna come along and take him shootin' again like you used to. He always asks after you, Erron. He looks just like you. Ornerier than get-out too. And Daisy? Oh, she's as cute as a button. You really should see her."

"But Shang Tsung's spell-"

"You can break it yourself," she cut him off. "Just take your gun and put it in your mouth. You know what to do."

"No!" Olivia now screeched, her voice like an icepick to the gunslinger's brain. "Erron, they're not real! Don't listen to them! They're the yurei!"

When he heard the word, Erron instantly snapped out of it. He pushed himself out of the dirt while Billy and Sadie both wheeled on the Cryomancer, who'd formed a kori sword in her palms to defend herself. They both prowled towards her, with Billy holding up his pistol, herding her backwards into darkness. Olivia, still terribly pale, set her jaw in stubborn anger, her blue eyes blazing in determination.

Just as Billy cocked his pistol and started to pull the trigger, Erron called out, "Olivia, down!" Without argument, she dropped into a ball on the ground, and the gunslinger promptly fired his own gun at his old friend. A cloud of dust exploded everywhere, coating Olivia's dirty backside.

Sadie, meanwhile, whirled around in astonishment. "You would choose this _girl_ over _me_?" she screeched. "I'm your _wife_!"

Erron shook his head. "My wife is dead," he sadly replied. "I don't know who you are."

"Erron, please," she begged, clasping her hands before her as if in prayer. "Your family needs you. You've lived long enough. Please, come home now."

"If it's my time, it's my time," he said. "I'll come along peacefully, no argument. But I ain't blowin' my own brains out to speed up the process."

"Erron-"

He swallowed hard. "I'm sorry, Sadie-girl," he apologized. And with that, he pulled the trigger. More dust motes swirled through the air. He swallowed hard, still choking on the ball lodged in his throat. Fresh tears streaked through the dirt on his face. At that moment, he actually _did_ want to blow his brains out.

"Erron?" Olivia now spoke, hobbling towards him.

"Let's go," he growled, scrubbing the dampness from his eyes.

Once more, he hefted Takeda onto his shoulders and led the Cryomancer through the maze of tunnels. He was embarrassed that the damned yurei had gotten the better of him _again_ , this time in front of that pain in the ass girl, but he was grateful for Olivia yanking him out of his delusion. Last time these spooks had cast their spell on him, he'd almost died before he realized on his own that it was all an elaborate trick. Silently, he squeezed her hand with that gratitude he felt, but he didn't look back at her, nor did he speak a word as they hustled along. And after about an hour of hurrying, they finally saw natural light and took their first whiff of fresh air in hours.

"Holy hell," Olivia muttered hoarsely, "we were down there all night. It's nearly sunrise."

Erron stared at the sky. The sun had not topped the mountains yet; a painfully brilliant nimbus outlined the jagged peaks. Long shadows covered the valley floor. And camped there, from the beginning of the pass to the cave, sat a large army, divided into two main camps, with thousands of little tents erected in all directions.

"Of fuckin' course," he muttered.

"Is it Reiko?" she asked fearfully, clutching his hand even tighter, throwing her torch behind her so no one was signaled by the light.

"On one side," he said, now noting the General's colors. His banners had been Shao Kahn's: an angry bull on a blood red sea, and black flames sweeping up the sides. The other army was much larger, with many more Tarkatans in their number. Erron recognized Edenia's modified royal crest printed on their banners. It had been manipulated to include Shao Kahn's so that now, it was a mighty bull on a sea of purple, trampling its enemies beneath its hooves.

"What about the other side?" Olivia asked.

"Someone worse," he sighed, cursing his lousy luck as of late.

"Who could be worse than Reiko?" she demanded to know.

"It's Mileena."

* * *

 **iceangelmkx, that GIF is one of my favorites! LOL I, too, am fond of tortilla chips :)**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, LOL, I try to keep you all on your toes. Are you out of the fetal position yet?**

 **DarkAssassin15, why shoot her hand when he can shoot the yurei?**

 **en-lumine, you're so sweet, but when I reread this chapter, I was like, "Meh." You're definitely the expert on introspection, for sure. I'm glad, though, that it affected you so deeply. She's had a hard road. She deserves a big hug.**

 **ROCuevas, I know, right?**

 **Juvenal, oh, well, I see what you're saying. I suppose Kailyn would be the most likely Mortal Kombat champion amongst my OCs. She's pretty badass, if I do say so myself. You got to see it more so in my previous story, _The Curse of the Dragon Medallion_ , but sometimes it shines through in this one as well. **

**Reptaliator, once more, you've managed to make me say, "What in the actual fuck did I just read?" Look, dude, I'm so happy that you're so invested in my stories. I really am. But before you posted that latest review on my story, did you actually take a moment to think about how it sounded? Go read it now. Say every word out loud. It sounds insane. Either that, or it smacks of spoiled entitlement. The idea that I would deliberately not update my story just to punish you for something is ludicrous. I'm not like that, one. I'm an adult. Adults don't behave like that (or shouldn't). Two, even if I _was_ angry with you like you believed, I wouldn't punish my other readers too just to get at you. I'm sorry, but that entire comment deeply offended me because not only did it impugn my honor as a writer, it impugned my "loyal followers." It was very self-centered of you. There is a thing called etiquette when leaving reviews, and you don't just go on a half-cocked rant smearing me and everyone else that reviews simply because I didn't update fast enough for your liking. It's rude. **

**And please, please, _please_ let Firebending Master go. He's not coming back. He's gone. He wants as little to do with me as possible, and the feeling is mutual. That's because he's my _ex_. **

**Now, to address your _other_ comments...On the home page of this website, there should be a place for you to click where you can create your own account. If you click on that, and follow its directions, you should be able to make your own profile and post your own stories. Then, you can also PM people when you have questions. You can make letters darker by pressing "control B" at the same time. When Kuai Liang and Tomas got drunk on sake, An Zhi _did_ do something; he whipped them with the cat o'nine tails. I just left that implicit when I originally mentioned it ages ago.**

 **Thank you very much for your support on my writing. So far, only some of my poems and one short story have been published.** **I hope I'm lucky enough to get my real books published, but time will tell.**


	33. Dear Sister

**Author's Note: Congratulations to Lightrunner for being my 300th review!**

* * *

Reiko, accompanied by Havik, the Chaosrealm cleric, emerged from the neutral emptiness of the Red Desert into a furnace.

One might have thought, at first glance, that the beginning of the mountain pass to Z'Unkarah was similar to the rest of this awful landscape. The earth here was also a cracked and blasted badland, largely swept with sun-baked sand. But the camp was erected at the base of a volcanic mountain range so hot and dark with basalt that it rivaled Netherrealm itself. Now, at sunrise, the only real light was the burning glow of distant columns of flame, and the air was choked with soot from active volcanoes beyond. Here, no lava flowed from the fissures in the broken earth. No, that was higher up the pass. These crevasses seemed dried, empty, as though Outworld itself had somehow mummified in its desiccation. The air here was harsher, reminiscent of brimstone and roasting flesh rather than the cleaner aroma of scorching sand.

Beside Reiko, Havik glowered around him, apparently trying to keep watch in every direction at once. "This is a vile place," he remarked.

"This is the least of what Outworld offers," the General told him indifferently. "This camp is nothing. _That_ is a vile place." He held his scythe before him, pointing, and even the Cleric could barely repress a shudder at what he saw.

He'd taken it, initially, to be nothing but a hill in the landscape, an uneven but otherwise mundane fold of sand in the contours of the Red Desert.

No. A moment's scrutiny revealed that to be an illusion, created by the layers of soot and dust that had, for centuries, coated the bulge. It was, in fact, a mound of _flesh_ , protruding obscenely from the fractured rock. Had it been more uniform, more – _squishy_ – it might have been a blister against the skin of the desert. As it was, the irregular shape, to say nothing of the folds and creases of skin that marred its surface, contradicted that particular impression.

Even as Havik stared, the entire mound quivered, as though growing excited. Almost…aroused.

"That's repulsive," he said finally.

"No less so on the inside, I'd imagine," Reiko answered, gazing on this place with almost bored apathy.

It was one more site cursed by Shao Kahn. This was, if his adopted father's story was to be believed, the place where he'd killed King Jerrod, the leader of the Edenian Resistance, and then raped Queen Sindel, forcing her to become his bride. A fitting place, then, for his disgraced "sister" to hole up with the remnants of her army. Reiko knew that, after Kotal Kahn and his puppets deposed her, Mileena would not let go of Outworld's throne without a fight. But she had no concept of patience, to say nothing of the bigger picture. All that mattered to her was her immediate gratification. She was smart but reckless, and it would someday bring about her downfall, he knew.

"Why are there no guards?" Havik demanded to know. It was a valid question. They'd been allowed to walk unopposed throughout the camp, and Reiko's own army had been allowed within the camp walls without question.

"I rather doubt Mileena feels the need," he answered truthfully. "There are probably a few stationed inside, but nothing more."

Havik turned, briefly, back toward the horizon. "Seems a foolish oversight for one who is wanted by Emperor Koa'tal for treason," he countered. "Even this far from the cities proper."

"Mileena has always been confident, from the moment of her awakening. My father's influence is strong in her. She undoubtedly believes that if such a person could get through her army, they would have to face her, and they would be sorely outmatched. And she would be right." He paused and then glanced at the Cleric, slightly smirking. "Usually."

"That explains why she was not concerned when your army approached."

"She knows my signs and colors," he explained. "And she trusts me, as I am family to her. She almost certainly wishes to speak to me. She needs me. It is a convenient point that I intend to use to my advantage." He pointed to the doorway with his scythe. "Shall we?"

Together, the two warriors strode towards the bulbous hill; with only a faint scowl of repulsion, Havik pushed aside the folds of flesh so that he and the General might enter. Together, they walked through cramped and twisted corridors of feverish skin, their feet sliding in slick secretions, occasionally tilted one way or the other by the faint pulsating of the flesh. They passed through the pools of sickly light, and alongside the towering candles from which the grotesque illumination shone. They saw, throughout, no sign of inhabitants, let alone guards, yet they both knew full well that they were watched at every step.

"I cannot help but notice that this is an _interesting_ location for us to be visiting in our hunt for…" He paused, perhaps wondering how much it was safe to say. "…objects that are also of an organic nature," he finally concluded. "I find it hard to credit that entirely to coincidence." Then, when the General gave no indication of having heard, "Lord Reiko?"

"Let us just say that I could use my sister's assistance," he finally said, not wishing to elaborate further. "We're here."

 _Here_ was another door – if by _door_ one meant two masses of skin pressed together in a lipless kiss.

"I'll go alone from here," Reiko said. "I want you watching to make sure we're not hemmed in or attacked from behind."

"Do you truly think me that stupid, Lord Reiko?" Havik demanded to know.

"No, I suppose not," he agreed. "I know Mileena well, Cleric. I know things of her that you do not. Ways she charms people into trusting her. Things that would horrify even you. You will wait in the corridor."

"You think me too weak to resist her feminine wiles, is that it?"

"If I do, there's no shame in it," he replied. "Nearly everyone is too weak to resist Mileena's wiles, just as they were weak to resist Kitana's." He winced as he said his dead sister's name, allowing himself to miss her for a moment, refusing to think on her as an undead revenant, Quan Chi's eternal slave.

"I'm walking in there with you, and if you think you can-"

Reiko spun, and Havik found himself with his back pinned against the slimy, oozing wall. "I relented," the General said coldly, "against my better judgment, in allowing you to come with me thus far. You've been useful, and may be so again, so I _continue_ to allow it. But let me be absolutely clear, Cleric. You are not going in there. If I have to feed your legs to my scythe and leave you outside as a crippled wreck, _you are not going in there_. You are no good to me, or to anyone, as a besotted slave of my adoptive sister."

Havik's chest was heaving, his teeth grating audibly, and had he not been pressed tightly against the grotesque surface, he might already have drawn his own weapon and damn the consequences. Another moment, however, was enough to calm him – not fully, no, but enough. He nodded. Reiko stepped away without another word, then pushed through that last disturbing portal and then the diaphanous curtains beyond.

"My goodness." The voice was thick, sultry – a sweet cream just on the cusp of going bad. "I was beginning to think you were going to stand in that hallway arguing _forever_!"

The General crossed the vast chamber, climbing the stairs of the dais at the heart of the room until he was only a few steps from the top. Atop that platform, a heap of Edenians and a few Tarkatans writhed around a throne, carved of marble, cushioned in supple Osh-tekk skin and locks of hair. They squirmed and thrashed, as every so often their mistress would reach down from her throne and stroke their exposed flesh with hands as soft as burial shrouds.

Her skin was as pale as porcelain, her dark hair cut to her shoulders, shorn in such a way that only accentuated her unearthly allure. Golden eyes that could coax even a Seidan Guard to sin – and had, on more than one occasion; a face to make a dead man ache; a figure to make a golem sweat. She was desire and death made manifest, and it didn't help that an animal musk exuded from her, from every gesture. Few in all the Realms could stand resolute before her. Most people would have gladly allowed her to skin them alive, if only they might gaze upon and worship her as she carved. Had Shang Tsung not blended Kitana's blood with that of a Tarkatan's, cursing Mileena with a horrific mouth full of fangs, she would be the perfect embodiment of female beauty, a goddess made mortal.

Today, she hid that imperfection – her only real insecurity – behind a fuchsia colored mask, and silently watched her adopted brother approach. She crossed her legs, setting her pets into a frenzy. When they saw him, the gasping, undulating creatures around the base of her throne hissed and growled jealously before once more turning their full attentions to their mistress, hoping she would reward them with her caress.

"Mileena."

The mystically created construct presented a broad smile behind her mask, made jaundiced by the ugly lights. She ran a slender hand through her hair, as though primping for her unexpected visitor. The other hand continued to idly stroke the writhing Edenians and Tarkatans. Occasionally, she squirmed where she sat. "Oh, my, Brother dear, if I'd known you were coming I'd have prepared a more suitable welcome. It's been such a long time since you and I have enjoyed each other's-"

"Save it," he barked. Whatever effect her presence might be having on the General, it didn't seep into his voice, and his expressionless face prevented it from showing. "I have no interest in _acknowledging_ our past history, let alone discussing it."

"Why, Reiko! Is that any way to speak to your-"

"I said _stop_!"

Mileena's laughter was soft, almost dainty, yet weighted down with the promise of pleasure and pain in equal measure. "You always were the sensitive one…" Then, when some of her amusement had passed, she said, "I rather doubt this is a social call. What do you want, Brother dear?"

"I need your help." Reiko knew he sounded like he'd sooner have cleaned out his ears with his scythe than to utter those words.

"Really?" she cocked her head, amused once more. "I'd _never_ have guessed it." His sister leaned forward, partly in emphasis, partly reveling in the General's discomfort at the quantity of skin thus exposed. She was far freer with her body than Kitana ever was. She tsked. "You're being awfully rude for someone who claims to want my assistance."

"I think I've been the very picture of courtesy," he said, with an idle twirl of his scythe on its base. "But if you want to see rude, I'll be happy to demonstrate. Sister _dear_."

For the first time, Mileena's amusement slipped entirely. "You should have more care whom you threaten, Brother. Someday, you'll find someone who doesn't take kindly to it."

"I'll be sure to think of you if and when that day comes," he retorted. "I would have your help."

"Why ever would I do that?" she asked, leaning back again.

"Because I'm hunting for two Earthrealmers," he told her directly. There was no point in lying. "They were in my custody and escaped. But they are aided by Erron Black."

Mileena stiffened at the name. Since the failed invasion of Earthrealm, she had loathed all humans save one: the mercenary. But he spurned her advances in his usual crass manner, and now, while she wanted _all_ humans to die, she longed for his death the most.

"How embarrassing," she finally spoke. "The High General of Outworld bested by that… _Earthrealmer_." She spat the last word as if it were a swear word.

"Yes, he is becoming quite the thorn in my side," he agreed. "I'm beginning to think I should've killed him for real when I had the chance. At the time, I thought it more beneficial to let him live so that Scourge could spy on him and the other Earthrealmers for me. But Scourge has told me precious little of use thus far."

"Why do you hunt them?"

"For leverage," he told her. "They're the children of the Earthrealm Champions."

"That is a _dangerous_ game you're playing," she smirked. "How long do you think the Thunder God will allow this? He will come for them."

"His brother, the Wind God, already pursues us, as do the children's parents."

"Now Reiko, why would you so foolishly risk your life taking these children hostage?"

"Because their parents have knowledge that I want."

Mileena stroked her chin thoughtfully. "Then why exactly do you need _my_ help, Brother dear?" she asked.

"Well, that's already more than I expected," he replied. "I assumed you'd start by being difficult with me."

"What would be the point?" she countered. "It's far more satisfying to let you _know_ I could help you, but choose not to." Again, that peculiar laugh.

"I thought you might say that. Just as I thought I might consider allowing my army to help you lay siege to Z'Unkarah," Reiko told her. "Try to put you on the throne of Outworld, since you're having so much trouble handling it yourself."

"Now I truly _don't_ know what you're talking about, Reiko," she said, but the corners of her eyes had crinkled in amusement.

"Of course you do," he scoffed. "You and I both know that alone, you cannot take the throne that Lord Koa'tal unlawfully stripped from you after the Dragon King fell. His Osh-tekk warriors alone would destroy you and the rest of your army. Of course, most of your supporters are dead now."

"Keep down this road, and you may join them!" she snapped, jumping to her feet. The writhing minions around her hissed and recoiled from their mistress' wrath. Then, more thoughtfully, she said, "Assuming I was even interested in such a proposition, do you really believe there's the slightest chance we could succeed?"

"It is fortuitous for you that I am your brother, and that I have a gift for strategy and much experience laying siege to mighty strongholds," he smiled. "Truthfully, it will be difficult to lay waste to Z'Unkarah. It is fortified by thick walls, and defended by the Osh-tekk and Koa'tal's other allies, all warriors far deadlier than the Tarkatan hordes that follow us both. But still, I would try to penetrate those defenses for you, Sister dear."

"I find your argument just a bit lacking, Reiko," she said. "If that's all you brought me, I believe this audience is at an end."

Reiko put one foot on a higher step, then leaned an elbow on the raised knee. "Oh, but it's not. That was just the appetizer. I don't think you'll find the main course nearly as palatable."

"If you're through with the dramatic metaphors…?"

"Very well, then. I am seeking Shinnok's amulet." Some peculiar crossbreed of a hiss and a sigh escaped from behind Mileena's mask. He smirked at her. "I thought you might remember that term," Reiko continued. "The Earthrealmer known as Kenshi has knowledge of its location, so I took his son as well as Sub-Zero's daughter. They are now pursuing me as I pursue their lost children."

"Troubling," Mileena admitted, having recovered her poise. "But I'm still unclear as to why _I_ should-"

"I do not know the specifics of your relationship with the Demon Sorcerer during his role in the Deadly Alliance, but I do know that you had one," he continued. "Indeed, yours is the most recent connection I can find between Shang Tsung and anyone still living. Therefore, I have no alternative but to assume that you and he colluded to assassinate Shao Kahn so that you could rise to the throne. As such, in the interests of upholding our father's law, you'll have to be declared an enemy of his house. You and I are now at war."

Mileena's eyes grew wide, and perhaps just a bit wild at the accusation he just leveled at her. "Wait just a moment-!"

"You have no friends in Z'Unkarah, Mileena. Precious few among Outworld, or even, at present, Edenians. You are not like me, Sister dear, who is still widely loved and supported by the people. Your circle of support is becoming increasingly small. It seems to me that you can't really afford my enmity just now, not if you want to take the throne and exact revenge on your enemies. _If_ , however, you were to offer me incontrovertible proof that you are _not_ , in fact, the treacherous Shang Tsung's servant…Well, then, I would have no need for open hostilities against you."

"Proof such as what, precisely?" she demanded to know.

"Oh, I imagine that a heartfelt, concerted effort to aid me in finding these Earthrealm children would make the point unmistakably and undeniably."

Her fingernails dug long, shallow furrows in one of her arms as well as the scalp of her nearest pet – and then, with an abruptness that startled even Reiko, she laughed. No gentle, seductive sound, this, but ugly guffaws that left her bent nearly double where she stood. Long and loud they echoed through the chamber, until the curtains seemed to rustle with their passage, and all the slaves at her feet had ceased their undulations to stare in confusion at their mistress.

"Oh, Reiko," she said when she could manage a breath, wiping a tear from her eye, "it is no wonder why our father thought so highly of you. You played that _magnificently_."

"Your approval means everything to me," he drily remarked.

"I'm sure." Another few laughs, and then Mileena quickly sobered. "I do not fear you, Brother. But you're correct that your attention would be, ah, _inconvenient_ just at the moment. So…the children…"

She paused a moment, lost in thought, then made a short, sharp sound that could only be described as a bark. Instantly, her slaves gathered around her throne turned and made their way – walking, crawling, slithering – down the side of the dais. There they vanished into a narrow cavity in the back wall, largely hidden from view. It was a moment more before their weeping and sobbing faded with them.

"Relationships such as ours deserve some privacy, don't you think, Brother?"

"The Earthrealmers," Reiko prompted again with a faint tinge of revulsion.

Mileena smiled behind her mask. "Of course. I have heard that a sand worm attacked them not far from here. There, they were swept underground. That is all I know. I would assume they're dead now, Brother. The tunnels below us are unforgiving."

"They live," he assured her. "Erron Black saved them from the yurei. Scourge relayed that much. They emerged from the tunnels on the outskirts of your camp not an hour ago."

"If you have this information, why bother threatening the Empress?" a new voice wondered.

Reiko glanced to Mileena's left and saw a truly treacherous being: Tanya. Scantily clad in yellow and black, the Edenian presented a scowl made more unpleasant by the severe bob framing her face. Her skin was a rich black and she had a very wide mouth. When she looked at Reiko, her dark eyes seemed to expand, almost as if they looked right through him. She did not encourage familiarity.

"Because she let them slip through her fingers," he coolly replied. "Why is… _she_ …here?" he now asked his adoptive sister. He gazed upon Tanya with contempt. She would sell out her own mother for half a golden drachma. He had never trusted her, even when she served Queen Sindel and Princess Kitana as a protector like Jade. But Jade had been loyal to the royal family. Tanya, in contrast, was loyal only to herself.

"She is my most important advisor, and she is here for every important discussion that I have," Mileena said as she took Tanya's hand in her own and kissed her on the cheek through her mask. "In many ways, I think, she is my most powerful and efficient warrior. And she is the _purest_ Edenian I've ever encountered."

"I'd hazard a guess that you and I have very different definitions of that word, Mileena."

"Do you want to hear this or not, Brother?" she hissed. Then, she returned her attentions to Tanya, stroking her face. Her sultry tone then returned as she said, "I have plenty else I could be doing."

Reiko thought he was going to be sick.

"Why did no one stop the children when they left the tunnels?" he asked, trying not to think upon his constructed sister and her traitorous lover writhing in each other's arms.

"If anyone saw them, I was not informed," Mileena glowered at him.

"And you allow such overt incompetence?" he asked, clutching his scythe tighter. "Why, Mileena, are you growing soft on me? Perhaps your brain is too addled by…whatever _this_ is…" He sketched an exaggerated circle through the air around her and Tanya.

"You are _truly_ straining the last of my patience!" she screeched, stepping up to him.

Reiko gently shook his head so that a few locks of black hair drifted across his eyes. "I don't believe that."

"You don't believe you're straining my patience?" she hissed.

"I don't believe that you _have_ any," he replied.

Again, his adoptive sister's face twisted in a very ugly scowl behind her mask. And again, just as quickly, she burst out laughing. "You truly enjoy having the better of me in this little discussion, don't you, Brother mine?" She stepped back and crossed her arms. "Very well. I can be a good sport." Her mirth vanished as surely as if Shao Kahn himself had appeared to claim her soul. "So long as you understand that this is a hand you only get to play once. Try to coerce me in this fashion again, and I'll destroy you and everything the False Emperor can throw at me, even if I myself die in the effort."

"Understood."

"Good," she chirped.

"How soon can your army be ready to march up the pass?" he now asked.

A trio of rapid blinks was her only sign of surprise, but it was enough to tell Reiko that, whatever she'd expected, that wasn't it. "March up the pass?" she repeated as if she hadn't heard him properly.

"Yes," he said.

"Within a few hours," she told him.

"Good," he replied. "Prepare them to march. Once we have the children in custody, we will march on Z'Unkarah."

Mileena began to bow her head, but Tanya stopped her. "Empress, how can we be certain he doesn't wish to seize Outworld's throne for himself?"

"Because, you little urchin," he growled at her, "my ambitions are far greater than that. I have no interest in taking my father's throne. If I did, I would've taken it the moment the Dragon King fell. No one in Outworld would've questioned the line of succession. It is more my right than it is Mileena's. I am Shao Kahn's eldest child and only male heir. It was always his intention for me to someday take his place." Reiko shook his head. "I do not _want_ Outworld's throne. My sights are set on something far greater."

His sister's face pulled in three different directions at once until she apparently decided it wasn't worth taking any further offense. "I trust my brother, sweet Tanya," she said as she glanced at her servant. "He has never been one to lie about his intentions."

"Then it's in all our interests to find these children," the enforcer spoke. She looked at Reiko with the same contempt he felt for her. "You know these children better than anyone else. Where are they going, if not to their parents?"

"I expect Erron Black is leading them to Z'Unkarah where they'll seek the Emperor's-"

" _False_ Emperor's," she corrected him.

"-The Emperor's protection until their parents can retrieve them," he continued, undaunted by the odious woman.

Mileena pondered for several long moments, one hand on her chin; the other gently caressed the leather material of her bodice as though, even unconsciously, she couldn't long pause her efforts at overt, vulgar seduction.

"The fiery passes are treacherous to cross," she said eventually. "They'd need to travel a safe path away from the main road, one that will take them over and past the rivers of fire, past the reach of the poisonous air. He'd settle for one of the high tunnels if forced, but it would be more prudent…Ah! I know! There is a narrow trail winding just above the main road. It is concealed by lava formations and some scraggly brush. I discovered it one day by mistake when we first came to this place. _That_ , my dear brother, is most likely where you'll find them. Erron Black is no fool. He'd want the shelter and cover from sight the path offers."

"Assuming he knows it as well," Reiko muttered.

"Oh, don't be tiresome!" Mileena snapped. "Of course he knows it. He knows this land as well as anything. That usurper sends him here often to find fugitives from his justice. Most people refuse to venture into the Red Desert to capture them, but never Erron Black."

Reiko studied her with a precise tilt of his head, as if to say he didn't believe her.

Mileena allowed herself a lusty sigh, one that anyone but the General might well have found fascinating in its own right. "If you doubt me, Brother dear, look into Scourge's mind. He will show you that I am right."

She spoke the truth.

"I will head after them at once," Tanya offered.

"No," Reiko firmly declared.

"Tanya is an excellent tracker," Mileena told her. "They will not stand a chance against her."

"You'll forgive me, Sister dear, if I do not trust her," he said. "I need these children returned to me. _Intact_."

Tanya scowled. "I will not harm the revolting little creatures," she hissed. "I just want this done with so you can go away."

Reiko exhaled, returning her evil glare. "Very well," he finally conceded. "But know this. If you harm them, you'll be dead before Mileena or anyone else can save you."

And Tanya, for all she strove to hide it, flinched. Had his voice boomed or lowered, had he shouted or threatened, she might've found him easier to dismiss. It was the calm, almost _explanatory_ tone that chilled even her blood. In spite of herself, she nodded her understanding.

"Now, Reiko, kindly be somewhere else," Mileena frowned. "I've grown irritated at humoring you."

The General merely nodded and began back down the steps, towards the hallway of flesh. _Need to mobilize the army; must defeat Koa'tal, put Mileena on the throne. She'll be easier to deal with than he will when I find Shinnok's amulet. Perhaps I'll destroy her. But then again, she may have her usefulness to me on the throne..._ Lost in thought, Reiko paused only once, as though having just remembered some token left behind.

"Mileena? It _is_ good to see you."

"And you as well, Brother dear," she called back after another moment's thought. "It's been far too long."

* * *

 **DarkAssassin15,** Well, bullets can't hurt ghosts, but I thought I showed that they just drove them away for a spell.

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior,** yup.

 **PinkRedRose2,** Haha you have no idea! I enjoy doing that to readers.

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor,** I hope Mileena lives up to the expectation! I never considered Erron like Lex Luthor, but that definitely makes sense. He's resourceful and whatnot. Gosh, it's been so long since I've seen _Tales from the Hood_ that I don't even remember that. :p I'll have to take your word for it. But in that moment, I was thinking about one time, when my thesis director took me and my BFF to this abandoned mine to trickster hunt, and he turned out the lights. It was crazy dark. It's easy to hallucinate when it is _that_ frickin' dark. It's as close to a sensory deprivation tank as I can imagine.

 **Jlord37,** Well, I hope you enjoy my interpretation of Mileena. I hope the build up is worth it!

 **Reptaliator,** no worries, just be more conscientious of how you frame things. Writers aren't trained monkeys here to meet your every whim, you know? Congratulations on starting your new account. If you need help with it now, you can send me private messages.

 **Esha Napoleon,** thanks!

 **Obelisk of Light,** long time no see :) Oh, you know me. I can't resist the dramatic flair. I'm not sure my Tanya will be on par, but we'll see.

 **Lightrunner,** thank you. I wanted to make Erron more multidimensional than just the same old hard-ass.

 **ROCuevas,** thanks!


	34. Hearts of Stone

**Author's Note: I'm sorry for the delay in updating. Long story short, my laptop went kaput on me. So I had to find a laptop I could borrow. I want to give a heartfelt thanks to en-lumine for helping me with considerable portions of this chapter, particularly those regarding Kenshi and Takeda's strained relationship. Her ideas, suggestions, and feedback are all invaluable to me. Thank you, my friend! I appreciate all your help on this one. I hope it lives up to the hype!**

* * *

Mileena's camp boasted a surrounding rampart of desert sandstone, some fifteen paces in height and three times that, lengthwise, on each side. A portcullis of dull iron, its bars serrated into thousands of dull fangs, provided the only means of entry inside. At each of the four corners, a spindly tower loomed nearly as high above the battlements as the battlements rose above the soil – and atop each tower, a double-barreled siege cannon some four times the size of the portable weapons Alex carried with him. It was an ominous and foreboding sight under leaden skies gently dumping ash upon the sand.

"Imagine," Fujin began, "what Mileena could have accomplished with actual time and resources."

Kailyn grimly nodded, apparently oblivious – or perhaps naturally immune – to the Wind God's sarcasm. "Sadly lacking," she agreed. "Still, I am certain it was the best she could manage under the circumstances."

All the Earthrealm Chamipions were stretched across the top of a sand dune on their bellies, watching the camp that spread out below them. Beside the Tetrach, Kuai Liang flashed her a puzzled look. Then he frowned, shook his head in disbelief, and stared at Tomas, questioning. The cyber-ninja merely shrugged and returned his gaze to the bustling camp, his automated retinas softly buzzing as they zoomed in for a closer look. He had long since learned to accept and embrace his mate's straight-laced personality, which was a perfect foil to his lighthearted one. It was why the two warriors – who were as different as night and day – got along so well.

The Cryomancer shook his head once more before returning his own gaze to the camp. Within the walls, a perfectly geometrical array of tents had been erected and currently flapped in the morning breeze. In neat rows between them, Tarkatans and Edenians casually walked here and there as if taking a simple stroll though a bustling market. Reiko's men mingled peacefully with Mileena's, though once, two rival Tarkatans got into a shoving match that ended with one decapitated and a crowd of sympathetic monsters cheering for the victor. There were easily a few thousand fighters within these walls. Far too many for the Earthrealm Champions to battle on their own.

Far too many for Livy to battle…

Kuai Liang inwardly sighed. Reiko's army, and now Mileena's, stood between him and his baby. It was his punishment, he knew. Karma was exacting revenge on him for sending her away by continuously putting her within arm's reach only to yank her away yet again. It was a vicious cycle, an unyielding tormentor, and he found himself wishing that Rain was waterboarding him in that dungeon again rather than spending another second separated from his child. But Fate was a cruel god who gave him no relief from the torture.

But at least he knew Livy was alive, in spite of Erron's ominously brutal honesty only hours before. Kenshi had reassured them all on that point, insisting that he still sensed their life forces, a fact that Fujin confirmed as well. But when the gunslinger led the teenagers from the dangerous tunnels below, all three were sure to be caught by the enemy. The cave mouth, he knew, was undoubtedly in plain sight of the Tarkatans and Edenians milling around.

"What do you think, Kuai Liang?" Anya nervously asked, jarring him from his thoughts, and now he looked at his own mate in surprise. She had barely spoken to him since she'd learned the truth about Olivia sleeping with Reiko. But rather than the usual anger that he was expecting, he only saw fear flood her lilac eyes while worry lines furrowed through her forehead. She obviously shared his sentiments about Livy's current predicament.

The Grandmaster somberly bit the inside of his cheek and shook his head no. Awash with guilt, he had no words. There was really nothing for him to say, and even less for him to do. There was no viable way to get to the cave, and any attempt to get there would only end in their imprisonment and death. Mileena hadn't forgotten how the Earthrealm Champions – namely Raiden – had humiliated Shao Kahn when he invaded years ago, and she certainly hadn't forgotten how they supported Kotal Kahn's claim to the Outworld throne over hers. She would not be merciful to them now.

As Kuai Liang studied Anya's face, following every contour of that gentle oval with his eyes, he thought about the day of the invasion. For all the horrors it brought to Earthrealm, for every nightmare that prowled the streets, for all the carnage and the mayhem, there had been _one_ bright spot to that day: it had been the day he met _her_ , that spirited nurse who kept him alive while he battled horrors of all types. He loved her face, which still looked the same now as it did then. They had endured much together, far more than the average couple, and had always come out stronger than before, clinging tenaciously to each other where others would gladly break apart. But he had no idea if they could overcome _this_. Without realizing he did it, he reached out to her and cupped her hand with his own, squeezing it to reassure her, even though he needed reassurance as much as anyone.

"Well, you know what I think?" Tomas began as he pushed himself onto all fours and slid backwards. His Czech accent was particularly thick today. It only got that way, Kuai Liang knew, when his best friend felt unusually anxious or stressed out. "I think we're screwed. In case that wasn't immediately apparent."

"You're merely stating the obvious," Kenshi admonished him. "Even I can see how much trouble we're in."

Tomas smirked, his face suddenly wide with a smile. "Wait," he began as he formed a 'T' with his hands. "Did you just make a joke at your own expense?"

"That's hardly-"

"No, no," he interrupted, holding up his hands to stop the blind man from speaking. "You did. You made a self-deprecating joke. You're making great strides, Kenshi. I'm proud of you. I didn't think you _had_ a sense of humor these days."

"This is hardly the time for levity," Hanzo criticized while everyone now crept down the backside of the dune and sat in the sand just below the crest.

"But it's all I have to look forward to," he argued. He now tapped buttons on his cybernetic gauntlet. His still-human fingers flew over his robotic hand and forearm.

Kuai Liang, who had dared to wrap his arm around Anya to comfort her – and surprisingly, she had allowed it and even rested her head on his shoulder – craned his neck for a better look at his friend's automated arm. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Trying to find a shooting solution to our problem," he replied. He furiously tapped several glowing orange and green buttons across the top of his robotic wrist. "So far, every single scenario gets us or the kids killed."

"Oh, great," Alex muttered from his other side. He looked incredibly tired, Kuai Liang thought. Dark circles ringed the Elite's eyes like a raccoon, and his cheeks had grown hollow from not eating and barely drinking. He seemed to be taking the news about Livy the hardest, which led the Grandmaster to one more conclusion he preferred not to reach.

"I'll keep trying, Alex," his father reassured him gently, now patting him on the shoulder.

"In the meantime, we should keep moving," Fujin declared, lifting Morgan, who was beside him, to her feet. "We can go around and use the dunes as cover."

"Reiko undoubtedly knows we are here," Kailyn declared.

"Undoubtedly," he agreed. "But he is more worried about recapturing his prize than he is about us. He knows it's a race against time, so he's going to try to find the children first."

Kailyn was already moving, taking great strides toward the cave mouth, using her spear as a walking staff, ignoring the putrid wind that made her leather skirt flap like a banner behind her. Alex walked beside her, forlorn and defeated, and beside him was Hanzo. The other Champions followed them, and for a while, Kuai Liang trudged in silence beside Anya, who had, for some reason, elected to stay close to him for a spell. By extension, so had Blue, but she did not growl at the Cryomancer, and barely even acknowledged his presence until his wife stepped wrong and nearly tumbled down the dune. Kuai Liang caught her before she fell, and it was then that Blue looked back at him when her master yelped, saw what had happened, and chuffed at him in grudging approval. Then she planted her hind haunches in the sand, curiously looking up at the couple as Anya brushed off imaginary dirt in humiliation.

Kuai Liang paid the Seidan wolf no mind, and instead watched his wife intently. She caught him staring, and met his gaze for several long moments. Then, to his surprise, her face wrinkled into a grief-stricken mask before she threw herself into his arms, holding him tightly to her.

"I just want her back," she whimpered against his blue and silver armor, her voice cracking.

The Grandmaster didn't answer her. Guilt surged through his heart once more, carried on a wave of _I'm sorry's_ , _Please forgive me's_ , and _I do too's_. This whole mess was his fault. He knew it and he accepted it. But he couldn't change the past. Rather, he could only fight like a lion to bring her home, gladly trading his life for Livy's should it come to it. It was these thoughts and more that he hoped Anya sensed through the tentative kiss he planted on her forehead.

But she pulled away, almost as if she'd gotten caught doing something bad. "We need to keep moving," she declared in sudden determination, her face smoothed into a somber mask. "The others are getting too far ahead."

"Yes," he agreed, and he followed her as she and Blue now rushed to catch up to the rest of the Champions.

Overcome with guilt, lost in thoughts of his daughter, Kuai Liang returned to watching their back, taking up his place at the rear. As he walked, the feeling that he was being watched grew in him. For a while, he tried to shrug it off. Nothing moved or made a sound save for the Earthrealm Champions, the wind, and the ash falling like snow around them. But the feeling not only persisted, it grew stronger. The hairs on his arms stood at attention; his skin prickled as if it itched inside.

Kuai Liang shifted his gauntlets to rub at his arms, and told himself to stop letting his imagination run away with him. There was nothing near him at the end of the line, and Kailyn would have spoken if she'd seen anything at the front. He glanced over his shoulder to reassure himself…and blinked. There was nothing there.

"Relax, Kuai Liang," Kenshi now spoke as he dropped back to join him. "It was just me."

"You were spying on me?" he hissed, annoyed.

"Just testing you," he said. "You've been so preoccupied as of late. I wanted to see if you were paying attention to your instincts."

"Worry about your own instincts," he snapped at the blind man.

Kenshi bristled at that, but then he looked ahead. "To be honest, I was also searching for some insight."

"If you want my advice, Kenshi, just ask me." Kuai Liang looked at him. With his wide chest and long face, he was a pillar, like a stone in the middle of a drifting dream. His sunburned cheeks might be faintly lined with age and his hair have a sprinkling of gray among the black, but there was a solidness to him, as though a flood could wash around him without uprooting his feet. He stamped over the sand impassively, as if he could see perfectly well. Reiko and Mileena were all very well, his manner said, but they had best not try to stop Takahashi Kenshi from rescuing the children.

He halfway smiled as if reading the Grandmaster's thoughts. "I'm so used to people playing games with me and trying to bury the truth that I sometimes forget there are still some people who'll gladly be forthcoming with me." He cleared his parched throat. "Forgive me, Kuai Liang," he said.

"What kind of advice are you looking for?"

He sighed. "I am thinking of Takeda," he murmured. "I think I was there for him for all of a week when his mother died." He shrugged. "When I see him again – _if_ I see him again – I'm not sure what I should do. I'm his father, Kuai Liang, but I have no idea how to be a father to him."

The Grandmaster now sympathetically smiled at his friend, knowing his pain. "Perhaps you're barking up the wrong tree looking for _my_ help," he said. "Before I became a father myself, I had four primary theories about raising children. Now I have four children and no theories." He scoffed. "Thankfully, I had Sifu Halsey there to show me how a father is supposed to behave. If I only had An Zhi's example, Livy's problems would be much worse than being lost in Outworld with a power-hungry general on her tail."

"I barely remember my father," the swordsman bitterly muttered. "I have no example of fatherhood to speak of."

Kuai Liang cleared his throat. "Didn't your father leave you at an orphanage when you were young?" he delicately asked. "That's really not so different than what you did with Takeda."

Kenshi scowled at that. "Point taken," he snapped. "And now, we've come full circle. Takeda hates me like I hated my father. I can't even blame him for that."

"Welcome to the club," he said just as Hanzo also fell back and joined them at the rear. "Livy hates me too."

"I wish Suchin hadn't kept his existence a secret from me," he mused. "I don't know how to be a father, but I would have tried." He sighed. "I would have taught him to play the guitar like me. His mother would have loved that."

"There is still time for that," Hanzo told him. His face, Kuai Liang thought, was like a knife both delicate and fierce, and permanently frowning. His forehead was currently knotted up like an old man's scowl.

The swordsman adamantly shook his head no. "I don't want to play anymore," he muttered to the Shirai Ryu Grandmaster.

Kuai Liang frowned as his old friend sadly turned his head away, obviously thinking about Suchin now. "I taught Livy everything she knows about being a Cryomancer," he declared, also sad. "She caught on much faster than I ever did. Everything I struggled to learn, she mastered in a fraction of the time it took me. God, she's so smart. Too smart for her own damn good, if you ask me. Just like Bi-han was at her age. If I didn't know any better, I would say she was _his_ daughter and not mine. She's nothing like me."

"Of course she is," Hanzo frowned. "When I was teaching her, I felt like _you_ were the one standing before me. She is stubborn and defiant, but she is also clever, resourceful, and determined. She _is_ your daughter." He paused and then rested a hand on his shoulder. "Perhaps she learned how to use her powers faster than you did because unlike you, she had a loving father to teach her," he now suggested.

"Perhaps," he agreed. "Though, as of late, there hasn't been much love in our relationship. She is…difficult to deal with."

"I concur," Hanzo said with the faintest hint of a smile on his face.

Kuai Liang pinched the bridge of his nose at that, fighting back the guilt forming behind his eyes. "You know, I had such high hopes for her," he admitted to his friends. "Someday, I wanted her to take my place as the Grandmaster of the Lin Kuei. I never told her that, but I…" he trailed off. Why hadn't he told her these things? He shook his head. "But I've ruined it. For all I know, she doesn't even want to be saved."

"At least you know her," Kenshi now said. "I know nothing about Takeda. I don't know who he is or what makes him _him_." He now wrapped his fingers around a tiny little frog pendant dangling around his throat. "If we rescue the children from Reiko, I don't know what I should say to him. 'Hello, son,' seems a bit contrived after all these years." He shook his head again. "Perhaps I should say nothing and leave quietly. It will hurt him less, I'm sure. And I trust you both to lead him safely back to Earthrealm."

"But he's your _son_ , Kenshi," Kuai Liang now said, an angry spark flickering inside his belly. "You have to say something. At least tell him that you're relieved he's safe."

"Reiko is after the knowledge I possess," he bitterly remarked. "I'm sure Takeda will feel much safer with me gone."

Kuai Liang was about to reply to that, but Hanzo abruptly cut him off before he could open his mouth. "Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what _they_ wish," he growled in his gruff voice. "They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others." His face turned crimson red. "Takeda is fractured and wounded. Leaving him without even acknowledging him will damage him further, and your relationship might never recover after that."

"We don't have a relationship," he hissed back.

"Because you don't want one," the Shirai Ryu retorted.

Now Kenshi's face turned a shade of scarlet to match his blindfold. "I left for _his_ sake-"

"You left for _your_ sake." Now it was Hanzo's turn to shake his head. "It is the same reason you kept leaving Suchin over and over rather than staying with her like she wanted: you enjoy your freedom too much to be tied down to one spot. And once she died, you found yourself shackled to a family and place you didn't want. But you couldn't let a helpless child fend for himself against the Red Dragon; even for one such as you, such a notion was despicable. So you brought him to me to unsaddle your burden. It was not Takeda you were thinking about when you asked me to raise him."

Immediately, Kenshi grabbed Hanzo's tunic with both hands, shaking him and growling, "I didn't ask you to raise him, I asked you to train him."

Kuai Liang now saw fire smolder in the Grandmaster's eyes, and his demeanor suggested he was within inches of teaching the swordsman a lesson, but to his credit, he remained calm, steadily inhaling and exhaling through his nose.

"I have done both," he angrily reminded his friend.

"But he is not your son," Kenshi reminded him. "Your son is dead. You are _not_ Takeda's father. _I_ am."

"Then act like it," the Cryomancer now snapped, now thoroughly irritated with his friend. "In the meantime, Hanzo has been more of a father to him than you have. He fed him and clothed him. He taught him to fight, taught him about the world. Bandaged him when he got hurt, consoled him when he had nightmares. He might not be his blood father, Kenshi, but he _is_ his father."

Now the swordsman wheeled on him. "What would know of it, Kuai Liang?" he shouted as the other Earthrealm Champions stopped in their tracks and gathered around them to listen to the brewing argument. "My own son, the only precious thing in my life worth protecting, hates my very existence. What do you know about that? What do you know about knowing you deserve every ounce of it?" His face twisted into a grief-stricken frown that suggested he was fighting tears behind his blindfold. "What do you know about your son idolizing someone who's not even you?"

"Have you even been paying attention around here?" Kuai Liang shot back. "Of course I know what you're going through. Livy hates me. She wants me smote by lightning where I stand, and I deserve every bit of it. And to add insult to injury, I find out that it's all because she prefers _his_ company to mine!" He furiously shook his head as he threw his arm behind him and pointed in Alex's general direction.

"All of you, enough!" Fujin now barked at the three angry warriors. He inhaled deeply and then looked from Kuai Liang to Kenshi. "On the matter of parenthood, gentlemen, consider this: family is not always your blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs, the ones who accept you for who you are. They are the ones who would fight and die for you, would do anything to help you and make you happy because they love you unconditionally."

"Playing on Pinterest again, Fujin?" Tomas now jabbed at him.

"You mock me when you adopted _my_ daughter as your own?" the Wind God scowled at him. "When Kuai Liang rescued Alexander from the Lin Kuei of old, and he and Anya raised him like their own son because you were…indisposed?"

While Tomas cringed at the obvious reference to his automation and time spent as a mindless killing machine, the Cryomancer also cringed at the reference to the day he saved Alex. The cyber-ninjas, who were newly under his control after he successfully claimed the Dragon Medallion, carried all the farmed babies to Sonya's base. But he had personally carried Alex in his arms, holding the two month old infant tightly to his battered chest because he was all that he had of his lifelong friend. The boy was precious to him, and as he walked through the portal with him in his arms, he knew he'd die to protect him merely out of allegiance to Tomas.

The thought of holding Alex in his arms like a son prompted even more thoughts of holding Olivia in a similar fashion. For a moment, his brain replayed a compilation of memories as if he were flipping through a picture book. There she was, cradled in his arms only moments after she was born, her newborn silver eyes sleepily looking at him while she cooed and squeaked, her body so tiny he was certain he'd break her like a toy. Oh, and look: now she was curled up against him in the fetal position, draping his big arms around her, all while shaking and crying after she'd had a terrible nightmare, refusing to go back to sleep unless he stayed with her to protect her from the monsters in her mind. Now there's a good one; relaxed and limp in his arms, she slept as he carried her to Sonya's borrowed Jeep after a long visit at Grammy Maggie's. She was tuckered out and snoring as he fastened her seatbelt around her, and in adoration, he'd leaned over and planted a kiss on her forehead. And then there was that one time when she was twelve and she leaned against his chest as they sat on the couch in his office, and she bawled for reasons she couldn't quite explain, though he secretly suspected it was her changing hormones making her emotions spiral out of control on a whim. And then there was the best one yet. Terribly proud of herself for making a kori sword on her very first try, she hugged him tightly; he glowed with pride as well because he didn't even master that skill until he was nearly twenty-six. Every time he held her, he realized, the unusual fire in her soul – which bore a striking resemblance to _his_ – warmed him like light from the sun.

And in that moment, it occurred to Kuai Liang that when he saw Livy again – _if_ he saw her – he didn't want to speak to her. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and hold her tightly to him to warm his soul and soothe the ache therein.

"Those are nice memories, Kuai Liang," Kenshi now softly said.

"I told you to stay out of my head," the Cryomancer coldly replied, jarred and unnerved about his privacy being invaded.

"I did," he said. "You're feeling those moments so strongly that they're exuding from you like musk, and I can't help but detect them." He pressed his lips together and exhaled through his nose. "I only have one memory like that with Takeda," he soon said. "Just one. He was exhausted from running from the Red Dragon, and from the strain of losing his mother."

Kenshi frowned and cleared his throat, obviously fighting the ball of pain lodged within, and then shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I, uh, I noticed that he was starting to fall asleep on his feet while we were hiking through the jungle near Jinghong. I realized he needed to rest, but we couldn't stop moving because the Red Dragon was too close to catching us. So I picked him up in my arms and carried him. He wrapped his arms around my neck, rested his head on my shoulder like it was a pillow, and dozed off. It was so simple, but…it was a good memory.

"You know, the funny thing is, he wasn't worried about himself as we were running. He was worried about me." He chuffed. "Eight years old, and trying to make sure _I_ got enough sleep and _I_ got enough to eat. Just like his mother. It was the following day that he gave me his special frog." He clutched the jade pendant once more. "I told you, it was then that I decided to leave him with Hanzo. I couldn't risk anything terrible happening to him. I needed to keep him safe like he was the most precious treasure in the world."

"But Kenshi," Kuai Liang began, "don't you understand? If you leave him without saying so much as a hello this time, you're not treating him like he's precious. You're treating him like he's disposable. No different than trash. Is that what you want him to think? What did it do to you when _your_ father treated you that way?"

The swordsman hesitated but then reluctantly nodded his agreement. "If only there was a way to turn back time so that I could save Suchin and stop those bastards from butchering her." He winced at the memory. "They'd be in pieces splattered across the walls before they even _thought_ of harming a hair on her head."

"Every man is guilty of the good he did not do," Fujin spoke.

Kenshi didn't seem to hear him. Instead, he swiveled his head in Kuai Liang's direction and said, "At least the memories you have of embracing your daughter end well and are never borne from regret."

"This time will be different," he quietly reminded him.

"Yes," Hanzo now agreed. "This time, you have a choice. You _both_ do," he added, looking at Kuai Liang as well. "When you reunite with your children, you have the opportunity to do better for them than your fathers did for you. Do not squander such a gift. Fate may not allow you another chance to make amends. It may rip from you that which is most precious for no other reason than it can. And listen to me, my friends. Grief is not as heavy a burden as guilt, but it steals more from you. It is a curse I pray that none of you ever have to know."

Once more, Kuai Liang glanced at Alex, who caught him looking and quickly averted his gaze lest he receive a tongue-lashing from his Grandmaster. It was then that he finally understood what his problem with the boy had been all along: he was jealous. He was jealous of every minute he'd spent with Livy, of every plan she broke to be with him, of every tear shed in front of him, of every secret she shared with him, of every glance, of every touch, of every thought. The Cryomancer wanted to rip the boy to pieces and purge him from Livy's mind and heart.

But in the end, he knew he couldn't. Alex was his son.

"Alex," he called to his Elite with a grudging sigh, knowing that Hanzo was right. This adventure in Outworld could come to a sad conclusion. He couldn't let things end this way with his adoptive son. "Come here."

Nervously, the young man glanced at Tomas, who looked at Kuai Liang suspiciously. But he did as he was told without argument because that's what he'd been trained to do. He shuffled through the sand towards his Grandmaster and stood immediately before him; their eyes were on level with one another, the boy's ringed in shadow, probably mirroring his own, the brown rich with sorrow.

"I'm still angry with you _and_ Livy for sneaking around like you did," he began, now threading his palms behind the boy's neck. "But Grandmaster Hasashi is right. If something were to happen to you, I'd be devastated the same as if you were of my blood." He pressed his forehead to Alex's. "Forgive me."

Tears welled up in the young Elite's eyes as he nodded. "Thank you, Grandmaster," he said. He then pulled away, and Kuai Liang gently patted his cheek. He hadn't forgiven the boy – not quite yet – and he wasn't sure if he ever could completely. But it was a start.

"Let's get moving," he now told the others, feeling lighter inside, though not by much. He headed to the front of the line this time, leading the way, and they all fell in single-file behind him, walking through the ashy dunes, lost in reverie.

It was at least noon when the Earthrealm Champions made it to the most dangerous part of their journey, but the thick volcanic clouds overhead dispersed the life in a neverending dusk. Behind the immediate mountains, lava geysers and flows glowed fierce and red, some of them pooling near them, forming a natural black wall full of jagged crooks with ghastly obsidian fingers reaching for the sky. They warily climbed up the sand dune pressed against the dark barrier, and at the top, they surprisingly found a little road that completely bypassed Mileena's camp heading into the mountains.

Kuai Liang led them up it, glad to leave the sand behind him until he realized just how narrow and treacherous the road actually was. Pressed against slow, meandering curve of the mountain, there was no barrier of any kind blocking them from the sheer drop-off to the valley below. As the group climbed, he noticed, that brink became deeper and deeper.

After walking for several miles through toxic plumes of smoke, falling ash, and blistering heat, they stopped to take a break. As they passed around their water skins and tried to nibble on some food, they suddenly heard a sound that none of them longed to hear: the noise of marching feet. It was still some ways behind them, but Fujin soared to a nearby volcanic formation, a twisted pillar of basalt and obsidian, for a better look. When he returned, he informed them that the combined armies of Mileena and Reiko were still some miles back, but gaining. Already, the warriors could see the twinkle of torches coming around the bend below them, and as the Wind God had reported, they were moving fast.

"Livy…" Kuai Liang muttered under his breath, knowing that the army was hustling to catch her and the others.

He held his breath as he watched the leading Tarkatans loping along, panting, and holding their heads down. They were clearly slaves to Reiko and Mileena's power, uninterested in military service, anxious to get their time over with. Edenians and several tall Tarkatans kept pace beside them, snapping whips at the main corps as they marched. But of the General and the would-be queen, there was no sign.

"Where is Mileena?" Anya asked, now giving voice to the question on Kuai Liang's mind.

From a crag just above them, a flash of yellow leapt onto the Hydromancer and drilled a tonfa through her shoulder. Anya wailed as the warrior – a woman scantily clad in tight yellow silks, with satiny brown skin like coffee – stood triumphantly over her victim.

"I'm afraid Mileena's indisposed at the moment," she said and then bowed with a dramatic flourish.

"Tanya," Kailyn hissed.

* * *

 **Esha Napoleon, thanks!**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, the thing with Reiko and Mileena is probably creeping you out because it's borderline incestuous. In my head, they are somewhat like Jaime and Cersei from _Game of Thrones_. FYI, she _does_ have the MKX mouth. She just covered it up because she's embarrassed by it. **

**ROCuevas, I'm glad you thought so!**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, they might make you a boy toy, but just think...that _could_ be fun...at least until they went stabby stab on you. LOL But yeah, Mileena doesn't handle rejection well, especially from an "inferior" race. And as for Reiko, he only _thinks_ that Havik is helping him when in reality, he's helping Havik. He's gonna be in for a shock when he finds out...**

 **PinkRedRose2, yay, I'm glad I painted a picture in your head like that! And that was exactly what I was shooting for with Mileena. So score on both fronts! :)**

 **Obelisk of Light, thanks! I think - and I could be wrong about this - but Tanya's not going to worry about Erron and the kids. She's gonna have her hands full playing with Fujin. Just a thought ;)**

 **JLord37, I'm glad. I know you were looking forward to Mileena's appearance in this. And I'm glad you appreciate my villains so much. I definitely wanted more complex villains than Shao Kahn, who is basically the Hulk doing his smash thing with the hammer. Yawn. I like villains who have traits you admire.**

 **Inferno Rage, that's true, neither of the Zero brothers can really criticize Olivia for killing and whatnot. But she got sucked into the fantasy that the yurei fabricated for her, so she didn't realize the hypocrisy of its torturous statements.**


	35. Collateral Damage

**Author's Note: Part of this was written by request by Obelisk of Light, who also helped me hammer some of it out. I hope it turned out like you hoped!**

 **Also, to everyone who has followed me or my stories, or favorited them, thank you so much. I am so grateful that I have people who care about my work enough to read it and better yet, enjoy it so much. I appreciate you all, even if I don't always get the chance to say so one on one. :)**

* * *

"Earthrealmers," Tanya spat at them like a swear word as Kailyn watched her yank her bloody tonfa from Anya's shoulder with a loud, slurping squelch. The nurse wailed again, and then screamed as the woman dug into the wound with the end of her stiletto boot heel. Beside Kenshi, the Grandmaster prepared to throw an ice ball at her, but Tanya clicked her tongue and wagged her finger at him like he was a naughty child. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Dragonslayer," she said with a smug voice. "My foot might accidentally go through her spine."

His face was twisted into such an ugly scowl that Kailyn was certain he could chew up iron and spit out nails, but he stood down to save his wife from any further torment. "Coward," he spat.

She cocked her head and smirked at him. "I heard she was your weak spot," she began. "I heard correctly."

The wind hissed, faintly but consistently, over the crackling of wood set ablaze by lava, Blue snarling from Tomas' side, and Anya's soft whimpering as she squirmed beneath Tanya's boot heel. The Edenian herself remained largely silent, however, her attention centered on the Wind God who stood at the head of the group, protectively interposing himself between them and her. She smirked at him, almost as if daring him to move. Her demeanor suggested that he could try, but she'd kill Anya before he made it to her. To further prove her point, she ground her boot heel even deeper into the wound. Anya wailed helplessly in response.

Kailyn wanted the _sus_ dead.

Furiously, she pushed her way past Kuai Liang to help her sister, water already twisting into a whip in her palm, but Fujin caught her and shoved her behind him. Now Tanya's lips spread into a broad grin that soon erupted into a chuckle. She ground her boot even harder into Anya's back, prompting the nurse to beat on the ground as if pleading for mercy.

"My, my," the Pyromancer spoke. "You all are a very long way from home."

"What do you want from us, Tanya?" Fujin demanded to know.

"I am merely here to arrest the Earthrealm trespassers and bring them before the Kahnum to receive judgment," she answered in a high, arrogant tone.

"The Emperor gave us his leave to travel through Outworld unopposed," he calmly replied, now crossing his arms. "We carry an edict bearing his seal that allows us safe passage."

"Oh, my dear lost lambs," she smiled. "Lord Koa'tal is an imposter, a puppet by which Earthrealm controls Outworld. I am to take you to the _real_ Kahnum: Mileena."

"All the free leaders of Outworld agreed that Lord Koa'tal, _not_ Shang Tsung's construct, is Shao Kahn's successor," Kailyn barked at her over Fujin's shoulder.

"Silence your concubine, Wind God!" Tanya snapped.

"Hey, she's not _his_ concubine, she's mine!" Kailyn heard Tomas call from behind her. Furiously, the Tetrach scowled and craned her head around to look at her mate. He smiled at her, instantly realizing his mistake, before awkwardly blowing her a kiss. She narrowed her eyes. He would pay for that remark later.

"We're not coming with you," Fujin declared, oblivious to Tomas and even Kailyn. "We do not recognize Mileena's authority. Kotal Kahn was lawfully and democratically placed on the throne of Outworld."

Tanya momentarily frowned but then smiled as a devilish expression crossed her amber eyes. "There was a time when you'd come with me anywhere, Lord Fujin," she purred, her voice less grating with arrogance and burning more with lust.

A jealous flare of fire suddenly bit at Kailyn when she registered the hidden undertones of the Pyromancer's words. She was no fool. She knew that the Wind God had had many dalliances throughout the ages, untold numbers before his short-lived relationship with her and undoubtedly several after. Tanya was just one of many. Yet, for that flickering moment on that narrow path, Kailyn had the overwhelming urge to rip the bitch's face off.

It didn't help cool her feelings at all when he replied, "I remember, Tanya." The faintest hint of a nostalgic smile crossed his lips.

The Pyromancer now abandoned Anya and casually sauntered closer to him. "That was before Shao Kahn destroyed Edenia, when I was still very young. You brought me into womanhood. Every night, as the silvery light of Elara sank into the ocean waters, we fell asleep in each other's arms, warm upon the sand." She touched his cheek, almost wistfully.

"Those were good nights," he agreed, closing his eyes.

Impatiently, Kailyn slid past him and pushed Tanya's hands away before lifting her spear to her throat, silently begging the Pyromancer to move. She'd gladly run her through and then push her corpse over the sheer ledge behind her. "You are an idiot," she hissed at Fujin, not remotely sorry for blaspheming him. "She is trying to deceive and distract you. You know she is as traitorous as Rain."

Fujin glared at the Tetrach, but she saw in his airy blue eyes that he knew she was right. "That was a different time, Tanya," he said, stepping back. "I was a different person then. _We_ were different then."

She nodded. "Yes, Lord Fujin, I suppose we were," she agreed, her face falling into a scowl and her tone abruptly shifting. "I foolishly believed that you would stay and fight for Edenia!"

Her face twisted into an ugly snarl, and balls of fire exploded from her palms and into his chest. They lifted him into the air and violently shoved him through the wall of jagged lava formations behind him. Obsidian and black dust exploded through the air, and then, Tanya screamed, "Archers! Now!"

Suddenly, throngs of Edenian archers peeked from behind the crags above, sheltered behind fangs of hardened lava, and they began to fire upon the Earthrealm Champions. Arrows screamed through the air, and the warriors barely had time to press their bodies against the uneven rock wall before they were shot. Some of the arrows sailed completely over the edge, doomed to fall thousands of feet to the smoldering valley floor below. Blue was the only one that refused to cower; she charged to her master and lied down over her body to shield her, and even took an arrow in the ribs for her trouble. She yelped in a canine squeal, but still, she did not move from Anya's body.

The initial volley of arrows passed, and as the archers reloaded their bows, Kenshi scowled behind his red blindfold and pressed two of his fingers to his temple. As if obeying a silent command, three of the Edenians above screamed as he psychically flung them from their hiding spots into empty air. They vanished, plummeting towards the earth like rocks.

Tanya laughed as she perched on a narrow rock shaped like a chimney and threw more fireballs at the Earthrealm Champions. Sub-Zero fearlessly stood between her and them and formed a large shield with his powers to deflect hers. It gave Smoke enough time to grab Kailyn and say, "Let's take a ride, _láska_." He barely got out the words before more of Tanya's fireballs broke through the Cryomancer's shield and knocked him to the ground. A stray one exploded between Alexander and Morgan, launching them into the air, knocking them over the side. Kailyn screamed for her children, but Tomas had already pulled her through his portal to the top.

* * *

The light was gray as Olivia and Erron walked, the blue sky choked out by the thick, ashy clouds looming above. The Cryomancer's eyes threatened to shut from sheer exhaustion, but she didn't complain to her companion, who had been silently carrying Takeda over his shoulder, about it. She trudged on quietly, wondering exactly what the yurei had said that was true, too afraid to ask her older companion if he thought her parents had indeed abandoned her. After the night she'd had down in the tunnels, she wasn't certain she could bear to hear the answer. But it gnawed at her with every step she walked.

They passed between lines of ancient stones, beneath the gnarled branches of petrified trees that eerily grasped for them. All day, far below them, a stream had run down from the pass ahead, cleaving a way between the rock walls, and eventually it flowed into a wider vale. Erron and she followed it, and eventually she heard the noise of a larger river. Suddenly, a lake appeared on the path just below them, and it fed the river she'd heard. It went rushing, steaming on hot basalt, through the fiery mountains and down to Z'Unkarah and the plains beyond. To the left, at the head of the dale that ran alongside the high mountain path, a tall volcano loomed above them. Its jagged peak, perpetually oozing lava from its caldera, stood stark black against the world while the glowing orange streams deepened the surrounding darkness.

"You okay, kid?" Erron asked when their path took them to the edge of the lake.

Olivia looked up and saw the gunslinger gazing back at her intently. She didn't know what to say. _Was_ she okay? She couldn't be sure. The deep fingernail scratches on her arm and face stung badly and were starting to get infected. The bumps and bruises from all the battles she'd fought in the last couple of days ached so much she could barely think straight. Her belly hurt from hunger, and her body felt weak from it too. The worst thing was her neck; she had barely moved it at all since she cut her own jugular and Erron had cauterized it to stop the bleeding. She didn't want to take the chance of breaking open the delicate clot. Now, her neck was stiff and sore as if she'd slept on it wrong all night.

Emotionally, she didn't feel much better.

"Why don't we stop for a spell?" he suggested before she could answer him. "You look like hammered shit."

"How much farther is it to Z'Unkarah?" she wanted to know as she sank onto a patch of damp grass, leaning against a rock.

"Not far," he said. He set Takeda's body on the ground and then stretched his back tiredly. "Less than a day's journey from here."

"Thank God," she muttered.

"Get a drink of water, kid," he ordered sternly, now crossing his arms. "You ain't lookin' so hot."

"Well, you're not exactly a supermodel yourself," she snapped as she climbed to her feet again and knelt before the lake's edge. But she obeyed him and took a drink from her cupped palms. It tasted like rotten eggs. She spat the water out. "That's disgusting!" she cried.

"It's the volcano, I expect," he told her, shrugging. "All that sulfur. It ain't poisonous, though. Won't kill ya. So drink up."

Olivia wrinkled her nose and forced herself to drink as much of the water as she could stomach while he built a small fire. He told her it was safe to swim and bathe in as well – he'd done so himself plenty times before when hunting fugitives – so she stripped off her tabi boots and jumped in to get clean. Once he'd finished building the fire, he dove in as well, scrubbing the dirt and grime from his body as best he could. For the first time since she'd met him, Olivia noticed faint scars marring his left arm; they were little tally marks, she realized, in groups of five. He had obviously done that to himself.

"What's with your scars?" she wondered as she tread water beside him.

"Just keepin' count," he said, tussling his soggy hair and then slicking it back.

"Of what?"

"All the people I've killed," he told her.

She cocked her head in confusion. "Why would you want a constant reminder of _that_?" she wondered. She thought of the man she'd killed back in Toluca. "I wouldn't want to remember something so terrible." As she said it, she looked away in shame.

Erron didn't say anything at first. Instead, he curled his finger under her chin and forced her to look at him. His blazing green eyes focused on hers. "Now, you listen here, kid," he began. "Killin's an ugly business. But if you're man enough to take the life, you better be man enough to remember it."

The young Cryomancer frowned. He was right. Such an act should never be taken lightly. It should be carried around, always, and never forgotten. She swallowed the ball of needles in her throat and then pulled free of his grip before she rolled up _her_ left sleeve. Then, after forming a kori dagger, she slid the point across her upper bicep. Olivia gritted her teeth as the blade deeply sliced her flesh and tears sprang to her eyes. She thought he might object to her outright copying him. But the gunslinger looked on, never stopping her, only giving her an approving nod. She gave herself two hash marks – one for the man in Toluca, the other for Reiko.

"Erron?" she asked a few minutes later as they were climbing out of the lake.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Do I have to keep track of all the Tarkatans I've killed too?" she wondered. "Because I've honestly lost count."

For a second, he looked at her in bewilderment. Then his expression brightened and he started belly-laughing at her question. His laughter made her laugh as well, and in a minute, he wiped his eye and said, "No, kid, I don't count the Tarkatans. They can barely walk upright. I'd feel worse for shootin' a rabid dog."

"Thank goodness," she breathed as she knelt beside the fire and warmed her outstretched hands.

"Are you lost, little girl?" an alluring feminine voice breathed from the shadows.

Immediately, Erron was on his feet with his .45s drawn, but from the darkness of the petrified trees behind them, something silvery and sharp – a sai – whistled through the air and knocked one of his guns from his hand. A split second later, the other revolver went flying after a second sai hit it. Olivia was now on her feet as well, looking towards the petrified forest, her hands wreathed in icy fog. A woman dressed in pink and black silk stepped from the shadows and sauntered towards them. Her face was shrouded by a pink mask, and her eyes glowed gold, beautiful in a way the Cryomancer scarcely understood.

"Filthy, traitorous animal," she snarled at Erron as those alluring eyes fixed on him.

"You seem upset, Mileena," he coolly replied.

"Treachery has that effect on me," she hissed, her voice smoky but sharp.

"You sure it wasn't just me shootin' ya down?" he asked, smirking.

"Don't flatter yourself, Earthrealmer," she spat. "I'm sure the only thing you'd make me feel is disappointment."

"Mileena?" Olivia repeated, now swallowing hard. "You're Mileena?" She'd heard stories about the would-be Empress. She'd nearly killed her mother years ago, before the Cryomancer was even conceived. Between her and her Aunt Miyuki, it was a wonder that Anya had even survived that year.

"And you're the Dragonslayer's daughter," she retorted in sinister amusement. "So pretty, just like your father."

"Thank you," she nervously replied. "I think." She cast a wayward glance at Erron, whose hands were now on his hips. He didn't seem too worried about her.

"I can protect you far better than the mercenary," the woman now spoke. "He will turn on you if someone offers to pay him more."

"Reiko offered me more, Mileena," he indignantly replied. "I turned him down."

"How noble of you," she drily remarked, her voice sultry. She looked at Olivia again. "I would keep you close to me, child, in my throne room."

"You would keep her as a pet and a plaything," Erron dispassionately remarked.

"Oh, no," a new voice replied, and now Reiko stepped from the shadows. Olivia's heart sank to see him still alive. She had been certain Skarlet now marched under his banners in his stead, but now that he stood there before her without a scratch on him, she wondered what it would take to kill the bastard once and for all. "My dear Olivia won't be _Mileena's_ pet." He smiled at her. "She'll be _mine_."

"Like hell she will," Erron hissed as he stood between them to shield her.

"I'm not sure how you intend to stop me," the General replied. "You're outnumbered, my friend." He lifted his arm and flicked two fingers, and on cue, Tarkatans emerged in a circle around them.

* * *

"Alex!" Morgan cried as she looked down at her step-brother.

Like a spider, she currently clung to an outcropping of rock that jutted from the cliff face by one arm, and held him tightly by the hand with her other. It was nothing short of miraculous that the two were still alive, but as soon as she thought it, the shale beneath her fingers began to break apart. A hail of arrows rained towards her, and she ducked to miss them. She slid for a second before the painful raking motion of her nails through dirt halted her again. As her body slammed into the side of the outcropping, her vision filled with black stars, and her arm threatened to yank completely from its socket. She groaned in pain.

"Morgan, hang on!" he yelled back, clearly panicked.

"I'm losing my grip!" she shrieked as he gripped her wrist more tightly with both hands. Another volley of arrows whizzed over her head. One even came so close that it lifted a loose lock of her curly hair as it zipped past.

She looked down at the valley floor below, and realized she probably shouldn't have done that. It was thousands of feet to the bottom of the vertical cliff face. What seemed like parallel cracks running the length of the rock, she saw, were actually hexagonal columns probably shaped by the active volcanic forces in the area, all of which were far too smooth to climb or hang on to without proper climbing equipment. It was just like Devil's Tower, she thought. And it was a peculiar thing to think about in a moment such as this.

"Well, aren't _we_ in a predicament?" Tanya's grating voice said above them as she stepped into view.

Neither Elite answered, but in fury, Alex yanked one of his pistols from his holsters and started shooting at the Edenian bitch. She stepped out of view for a minute, but when he ran out of ammo, she returned, this time holding two balls of fire in either palm.

But now a new voice rang out, an unexpected one at that. A petrified tree branch flew through the air and cracked Tanya across the back of the head at the same time Anya screeched, "Leave them alone!" The Pyromancer collapsed to the side, probably unconscious, as Blue snarled and bit at her body. Then Anya dropped to her belly and gripped the leather straps of Morgan's tunic tightly. "Hang on, you two," she nervously chattered, squeezing her eyes shut in terror. She was utterly terrified of heights, the Elite knew.

Then they heard a pained whine accompanied by a loud _thwap_ before Tanya was on her feet again, this time bleeding from the side of her head. Her face was twisted into an ugly expression, and furiously, she stomped into Anya's back. "I will teach you respect," she growled as she twisted her boot into her wounds once more. The Hydromancer squealed, and her grip on Morgan's armor loosened.

"Alex!" the Elite helplessly screeched at her brother, hoping he'd do something. But without a free hand to reload his gun, there was nothing he could do besides helplessly watch Tanya torture their aunt with her boot heel.

Soon, Anya's grip loosened completely, and now Morgan found herself slipping once again. "Oh, my God," she whimpered. " _Táta_! Daddy!" she now wailed, hoping either Tomas or Fujin heard her cries for help. But her fingers began to slide again, now slick with sweat. The dirt crumbled beneath her palm, and she slipped faster and faster towards the edge. Frantically, for the hundredth time since finding herself in this predicament - she searched her surroundings for something – _anything_ – to help her out of this mess. But there was nothing but the sheer columns and this random outcropping of stone.

"Morgan, don't let go," Alex called up to her, sensing her struggle. Through his hands, she sensed his own fear, but also his immense grief over Olivia underlying it. He felt so alone, so betrayed, so angry. When he saw her again – _if_ he saw her again – he planned to end it all since she didn't seem to care that much for him anymore. But if they fell, she saw inside him, he'd never get the chance to hurt her back. He wanted to at least do _that_ much before he died.

"I'm trying," she grimaced, but her fingers slid even more quickly towards the edge. But she couldn't hang on any longer. Within seconds, both of them were free-falling towards the valley floor, screaming.

* * *

Snarling, growling, skulking, the Tarkatans crowded around the foursome at the campfire. On and on, until it seemed even the clearing could not contain them all. Yellowed blades protruded from their forearms. For the length of several breaths they held, pausing in their cries and howls, waiting for their masters' command. The tableau grew silent, save for the occasional spatter of dangling drool.

"I give you just one option, Erron Black," Reiko now told them. "Do not resist your arrest, and I swear I shall give you a death befitting the mightiest warrior."

"And what of these kids?" he demanded to know, still shielding Olivia.

"I still have no intention of harming them," he sincerely replied. "They will be well cared for until I get an answer from their parents. Should Kenshi tell me what I want to know, I will release Takeda back to him. Olivia, of course, will stay with me as my slave. A small pittance, really, when you consider that she's nearly killed me twice in the same evening."

The young Cryomancer bristled in disgust at the implication. "I'll kill you a _third_ time, you smug bastard-" she growled, but was interrupted when Erron held up his hand to silence her.

"I don't much like your terms, General," he calmly drawled. "So you and Mileena can take your _generous_ offer and shove it up your ass." His deadpan delivery made the teenager smile defiantly at the pair.

"Pity," he said as he shook his head and looked at the pink-clad woman. "Sister?"

Mileena now roared a command in Tarkatan, her voice wet and burbling, and the horde fell upon them. Olivia soared as they attacked, twisting through sharp blades with the grace and speed of a snake. Her kori sword licked out at any who dared come too near. The Cryomancer stamped and thrust, spitting Tarkatan after Tarkatan on her sword's glassy edge. Claws and blades screeched harmlessly off her kori shield, and she returned their attack by freezing them with icy breath. Beside her, Erron's shotgun bellowed in rapid bursts. Tarkatans howled in pain as the lead shot pellets ripped through flesh and bone alike.

"Hey, kid, clear me a path to my guns!" Erron soon yelled at her as he fired round after round at the beasts. Their number was rapidly thinning.

On command, her entire body began quivering with her cryogenic energy, rippling blue. Then, with her blade dripping blood and her soul now empowered by adrenaline, the Cryomancer knelt and drove her weapon into the dirt. As they had back at the Shirai Ryu Temple, kori blades similar to her original sword burst upward in a deadly thicket, exploding in a blast of ice and frost. Tarkatans froze like statues or retreated with severe frostbite, screaming obscenities.

Now she raised her arms, and a cloud of ice shards sprang from the floor, just like her father had taught her. They whirled into a semi-solid tornado with her and Erron at the center. Tarkatans disintegrated into flapping fronds of meat. So loud was the whirlwind, the Cryomancer couldn't even hear the enemies' screams. When she finally allowed the ice storm to disperse, she noted that more than two-thirds the original number were either dead or dying. Of course, the downside to this was that the survivors consisted almost entirely of those Tarkatans tough enough to withstand such an assault.

But it gave Erron the space he'd requested, at least, and he dove, unopposed, for his .45s. When he reached them, he started shooting the remaining monsters.

Mileena now lunged for him, but instantly, Olivia slid on a sheet of ice towards her and knocked her to the ground. She huffed in fury as the construct bounced into one of the petrified trees and she got tangled in a branch. She yelped as she tried to wiggle loose, but the stony branches grasped her tightly with little fingers. She remained stuck, much to the Cryomancer's delight. Mileena saw Olivia coming and tried to kick at her, but she furiously slapped her leg aside and then punched her in the mask where her mouth was.

Reiko then charged at her, but this time she produced an ice dagger and slid beneath his arm, swiping at his ribs as he thundered in front of her, cutting a neat line between the straps holding his armor onto his chest. He yelped as his fist bounced off the petrified tree trunk, but he ignored the pain and whirled around to face her. Smaller and more nimble than he was, Olivia easily scrambled out of his reach and leapt like a cat onto a boulder nearby.

"I will _never_ go with you," she growled as blue energy crept up her palms. "I will die before that happens."

"You don't have my permission to die," he smiled.

And then he snarled and lunged at her just as she fell backwards into a pool of ice on the ground and teleported to a spot behind him. It happened so fast that the Cryomancer had already yanked him down to the ground by the time he realized what she'd done. But Reiko was fast and ruthless. With a ferocious growl, he swept her face-first into the dirt and then rolled on top of her, driving his elbow into her nose before he drew his fist backwards across her cheek.

Now Olivia, burning tears still streaming from her eyes, tried to slap him, but the General chuckled as if he enjoyed her resistance, and he batted his hand away and wrestled her onto her stomach. Quickly, he scrambled to his knees and wrapped his powerful arms around her neck, putting her in a headlock. She squirmed, trying to get free, but he held her tightly.

"That's right," he panted into her ear, his voice hot on her neck. "There's the fire I've come to expect from you." As Olivia's blue and fog-wreathed hands grasped for him, he calmly batted them away, ignoring the sudden frostbite in his own hand, now nuzzling her ear. "Admit it, Olivia. There is a part of you that yearns to return with me, the part that longs to be a woman free of her father's control. The part that enjoyed the way I made her feel, that enjoyed the way I knew exactly how to please you. I don't understand why you're resisting me, Olivia. You can stand proudly by my side as I remake the Realms, just like a queen. I can make you something better than you are." He loosened his grip on her throat and stroked her cheek gently, coaxing her eyes to close of their own accord.

"You've spent enough time together as it is," Erron's voice spoke, breaking the spell before his new staff cracked into the back of Reiko's head. The General groaned and rolled off her body. "You ain't need to spend any more."

Reiko quickly sprang to his feet with two throwing stars held tightly in each palm. "You think to use _my_ staff against me?" he demanded to know. He threw the stars at him.

"The way I see it, it's mine now," Erron drawled as he twirled it defiantly after deflecting the projectiles. "You hung me from it, after all. Left me to die. So I'm keepin' it."

"I disagree," he said before he uttered words in a strange language. As soon as he spoke them, the staff seemed to leap from the gunslinger's hands and into the air as a mysterious green energy slithered around it. Soon, it began to change shape. Within seconds, Scourge reappeared and squawked indignantly at Erron, pecking at him a few times before he flew back to Reiko's shoulder. "He's been very helpful with providing me information about your movements," he said with a smirk. "Mileena's people are swarming upon your friends as we speak. I doubt they have long for this world."

"You bastard!" Olivia now screamed as she lunged at him with a kori sword. Worry for Takeda's rescuers – not hers, she was certain – overwhelmed her. With the exception of Scorpion, they had no clue what they were getting with Reiko.

She swung her arm at his chest to cut him, but Reiko leaned back enough so that the weapon skirted harmlessly over his body. She screeched in annoyance, so she snap-kicked at his groin. This time, he easily blocked her. She wasted no time stabbing at him again, but as he blocked this time, she anticipated his movements. She gracefully sidestepped and shoved her elbow into his cheekbone, knocking him into the tree behind him. Just as Mileena had only moments ago, he became stuck when the petrified branches bit into his clothes and held him fast. The General quickly produced a dagger from his belt, but found the angle to be a tad awkward to cut himself loose immediately, a detail Olivia noticed as well. She stalked towards him like a lion hunting a gazelle.

But Mileena, who had freed herself, now rejoined the fight to distract her while Reiko worked to get his armor loose, and the pink-clad warrior cackled as she stood between them with her sais crossed in front of her face. Once more, Erron stepped between her and Olivia, shielding the young Cryomancer from the construct. This prompted her to giggle, "Don't tell me the great Erron Black, Koa'tal's legendary enforcer, actually _cares_ for this poor, helpess child?"

"I have a problem, Mileena," he began angrily. "And you ain't gonna like how it gets resolved."

"Your confidence is amusing, Earthrealmer," she hissed. "Especially since you and the girl are both about to become my slaves."

The gunslinger grunted as he quickly raised his gun and shot at her. Though she dodged, the bullet still found Mileena's cheek, cutting a perfect line deep into the otherwise flawless tissue above the seam of her mask, and she yelped as the shock of the blast and the momentum of the bullet knocked her down.

Now Erron rushed forward and tried to kick her in the chest, but she paid him back for the oozing gash on her face as she stabbed deep into his knee with one of her sais. He moaned. While the gunslinger stumbled, gushing blood, Mileena threw a left hook at him with her fingers curled around her weapon. Erron awkwardly blocked the punch, but the construct jumped into the air and kicked him backwards, knocking him across the fire. He wailed in pain as fire licked his skin and cinders exploded in his eyes.

With that, Olivia rolled a glowing blue orb in her palm before she threw it at Mileena's feet. Unlike ordinary ice balls, this one exploded on impact and chucked her into the air like a rag doll; it was a trick she'd developed after her Uncle Tomas' own move had inspired her. Mileena landed a second later on the ground with a pained thud and large shards of ice crystals like glass jutting from her legs.

But Olivia was so distracted by her that she didn't remember Reiko until he, now free of the tree, launched himself through a portal and reappeared behind her. Startled when he rammed into her back, Olivia stumbled to the ground, falling on one knee. She craned her head around to face him with a frustrated grunt. She was tired and fading fast; these two were impossibly strong, and without Erron, she wasn't confident she stood a chance against them.

As if reading her mind, Reiko stalked towards her like a predator on the hunt, a cold expression in his eyes as he pulled his scythe from the ether. She saw it before she stabbed at him with her kori sword. His hand finally shot out and yanked her arm, and he jarred her sword hand to the side. But she refused to let go of her weapon.

With a determined war cry, she swung her free arm around to backhand him with her fist, but now he caught her wrist with one hand and punched her with the butt of his scythe with the other. She lurched forward, but still managed to wriggle free, bat away his weapon, and throw a straight punch at his face. When Reiko blocked her, Olivia growled as she whirled around to chop into him. But again he blocked it with his scythe, threw a punch of his own, and then head-butted her directly in the forehead. She yelped and staggered backwards, clutching her now gushing nose. Pain surged through her face, and she vaguely wondered if he'd broken her nose.

The General sensed her weakness and stalked towards her, but she quickly moved her hands from her face and sidestepped. The two glared at each other as they paced around each other in a half circle until Olivia finally sliced at him with her sword. He blocked it and then plunged his free fist into her gut with his left. She groaned, overcome with nausea as he grabbed her right hand once more and yanked her closer to him to wrestle the kori sword loose.

Olivia yelped in pain, and immediately shoved him backwards with resurgent strength. Reiko, startled, crashed to the ground in a heap. She grunted in fury as she lunged towards him, but he promptly booted her in the solar plexus. She stumbled into a boulder, choking for air, while he flipped to his feet. She then stepped into a sloppily executed roundhouse kick that he easily ducked. She grunted in frustration as she snap-kicked at him, but he caught her leg and smirked at her, thinking her defeated.

It didn't work like he'd planned. Olivia's balance was steady, and instead of panicking because she was being held at his mercy, she calmly punched him in the jaw. Reiko's head snapped to the side and he released her, but even as he stumbled he caught the teenager's slender wrist. Instantly, he wrestled the kori sword free and shoved it down through the top of her arm, grinning in his own evil satisfaction as she screamed and sank halfway to her knees. The General didn't let her fall all the way; as she writhed in agony in his grip, he side-kicked her in the gut.

Olivia flew into the nearby boulder, but did not fall completely. Tears streamed down her face now, her body screaming in pain. But with eyes still wet, she dropped her chin to her chest as she slowly slid the dagger from her wound. Blood gushed from the injury as the blade slid through, and she felt every contour of her weapon as it passed through tissue and sinew in cold agony. Olivia wailed as she yanked it out, but then she threw the sword at him when it was free. He ducked and it flew harmlessly into the trees.

The Cryomancer panted, her wounded arm now hanging limply at her side, as both Reiko, Mileena, and the remaining Tarkatans crowded around her, certain of victory. But she had one last trick up her sleeve. With her eyes only, she glanced at Erron, who was writhing in the dirt just on the other side of the fire while Scourge pecked at him ruthlessly. And then she glanced at Takeda, still asleep on the ground, completely unaware of the titanic battle waging around him.

Without warning, she fell backwards into an icy tomb, sliding through white walls pulsating with glowing energy, and reemerged beside Erron. After freezing the raven spy into a dead statue, Olivia scooped the gunslinger into her arms like a doll and then pulled him through the same portal as well. Quickly, they traveled to a place further up the path, as far as her powers would allow her to go.

"What are you doin', kid?" Erron panted, his face burned, the kohl around his eyes smeared from sweat and tears. "You should've saved Takeda."

"I'm going back for him," she announced, returning through the icy portal.

But Reiko was waiting for her when she reemerged, holding his scythe proudly, his lips spread into a wolfish grin. "Looking for this?" he jeered as he nodded to Mileena, who now held the unconscious Takeda in her arms, propped up on his feet like a puppet. Olivia's eyes went wide in surprise and despair. They'd gotten what they wanted. They'd gotten her classmate back.

"Get her!" the construct now screamed at the remaining Tarkatans.

The Cryomancer could do nothing else on her own except run. And that's what she did. Once more, she leapt through an icy portal and found her way back to her wounded guide.

* * *

Once Fujin heard his only child's screams for his help, it didn't take him long to recover from his shock over being attacked by Tanya. He exploded from the cavern his body had just created, carried on a gust of wind into the air above the fighters, and surveyed the battlefield to find his daughter. Where the archers took shelter above the path, Smoke and Kailyn were busy mutilating them. Kenshi used his telekinesis below them, plucking the archers one by one from their path. Scorpion and Sub-Zero battled enemies on the path itself, their weapons impressively hacking away at the rebel Edenians and Tarkatans that swarmed towards them. Blue lay severely wounded in a bloody puddle on the path with an arrow jutting from her ribs and a tonfa from the nape of her neck. Close to her, Tanya ground her boot into Anya's back once more, and the Hydromancer Healer was screaming in pain, uselessly flailing her arms at the woman to get her to stop. Everyone was accounted for save Morgan and Alex.

It was then that Fujin noticed the deep furrows in the dirt of an overhang. They looked suspiciously like claw marks, and they dragged towards the edge until they slipped over the side completely. Sudden understanding filled the Wind God. Morgan would _never_ scream like that for his help unless it was dire. With a panicked shout, he hurled himself over the edge like a microburst, shooting down like a rocket.

Within seconds, he saw both of them spiraling out of control, screaming. The ground grew steadily large in his sight. The jagged rocks below grasped for them, hungrily waiting to devour their newest victims. Already, several Edenian warriors lay in bloody pieces on the lava formations, their intestines decorating the rocks like streamers. Fujin grasped for Morgan, and when she saw him, she grasped back, reaching in desperation. Closer, closer. The ground grew ever closer. He brushed her fingers, but a wind sheer pushed them apart.

 _Someday, you will know the pain of losing a child_. Raiden's voice echoed morbidly in Fujin's head. _Someday…_

"Morgan!" he cried, as much in panic as in determination.

"Daddy!" she screeched back, her face wrenched in terror.

He couldn't lose her. Not yet. Not here. Not like this. She was his baby, the sun in his existence. He stretched out his hands to her. Closer, closer. The ground grew ever closer.

For a split second, he thought of the first time he held her, twenty years earlier in Tlachtga. She was red-faced and bawling, but he saw that she had bright gray-blue eyes, typical newborn eyes that would eventually turn the color of lilacs, just like her mother's. Love welled inside of him, and pride, and hope for the future. It was strange, he remembered thinking, how such a tiny thing could sweep him in such a vast sea of emotion. And yet, there she was, settling down in his arms, her eyes sliding shut as she dozed off, and he wanted to give her everything that was in his power to give. At the moment, he had settled for giving her a kiss on the cheek and the name 'Morgan,' which meant 'she who lives by the sea.' But now, as she screamed to be saved, the ground waiting to swallow her up, he had to give her more than a name, or a kiss, or the world: he had to give her _life_.

He pushed himself to move even faster. In a second, his fingers wrapped around her wrist, and with a furious tug, he yanked her to him. And then, when she was safe in his arms, he found Alex as well, and plucked him from his free-fall. They collided with the ground only a split second later with all the ferocity of a comet, and a cloud of dirt and debris mushroom clouded around them, but Fujin's divinity sheltered them from harm, and they climbed from his body, shaking.

The Wind God could scarcely breathe as he rolled to his knees, the air crushed from his lungs, but that didn't stop him from grabbing Morgan by the shoulders and yanking her into his arms. He tightly wrapped them around her, fighting back the shuddering sob building within his chest. He'd almost lost her. By the Elder Gods, he'd almost _lost_ her!

 _Someday, you will know the pain of losing a child_.

"Thank you," he whispered to the Elder Gods. "Thank you, thank you." He could not stop uttering his thanks for her safety as his hand burrowed through curly hair to her neck, pressing her to him. He planted kisses of relief all over her face and head.

"Daddy," she whimpered, crying.

"It's okay, Morgan," he said, wiping his own eyes. "You're safe now. You're both safe." And even though he was Tomas' son, the son of the god's replacement, he pulled Alex to him as well, embracing him to comfort him. He was severely shaken too.

"I thought we were goners," she mumbled.

"What happened?" he demanded to know, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Tanya happened," Alex spoke, pulling free of the god's grasp. "She attacked Aunt Anya when she was trying to pull us up. She was the one who knocked us over the side to begin with."

Red suddenly washed across Fujin's vision. _Tanya_. Trembling in barely controlled rage, he pulled away from them, his eyes fading from sky blue into divine white marbles, glowing brightly with the light of the universe. Wind whipped around him, building like a tornado, reflecting the growing fury inside his heart.

"You will stay here," he said to both Morgan and Alex as he now stood up and straightened, allowing the updrafts to pull him off the ground.

"But dad!" she yelped, wounded by his declaration. "That's not fair! We need to get back to the fight!"

"No, Morgan," he firmly declared, rising into the air. "You're grounded for scaring me like that."

"Dad!" she yelled, her face turning tomato red as he lifted higher. "Dammit, dad! Don't leave us down here!"

But he ignored her and headed back to the path above where the Earthrealm Champions still fought like lions against Tanya and her lackeys. Fujin felt nothing but anger when he saw Tanya – who had long since abandoned Anya – fighting with Sub-Zero now. Impatiently, he pulled the surrounding air into his palm, charged it with his power, and thrust it towards his former lover with a ferocious snarl. As expected, a violent gust of wind lifted her off her feet and blew her to the side and into a rock, interrupting her fight with his cousin.

Ominous wind whistled almost inaudibly around the Wind God, the faint sound rising to his ears as cold mist from Sub-Zero's body curled around his boots, which were dangling at least a foot above the path. Fujin glided towards her, his eyes still gleaming white. Tanya – who had already recovered and was on her feet – fearlessly waited for her attacker, and then scowled at him with amber eyes like polished daggers.

The Wind God saw the fire in her hands glow red and orange. Not surprisingly, Tanya jerked her arm to throw the ball of flames she'd just summoned, but the other immediately shielded himself with a whirlwind enveloping his body. The whipping gusts of air caught the fire in their arms, curling through the twisting bands like ribbon. When Fujin threw his palms to either side, they obeyed his silent command and shot the flames in all directions, focusing mostly on the Edenian traitor.

Tanya contemplated this for a moment, standing in a posture that suggested she'd continue to fight, but just as Fujin was about to attack, she called for retreat and then turned and ran. He leapt through the air, carried on an air current, to chase after her. He blasted apart the rocks she'd disappeared through, easily shattering them like eggshells with his tumultuous gusts of wind, determined to find and crush her too. But there was no sign of her, not even the faintest trickle of blood from a wound.

"Lord Fujin!" he heard Kailyn cry, and still trembling in fury, he turned to face her. She and Smoke both ran towards him, fearful expressions plastered on their faces. "Morgan and Alexander-"

"I saved them," he curtly spat at her. "They're safe at the bottom, no thanks to you two." And furiously, he climbed into the rocks where Tanya had disappeared to discern how she'd escaped. He owed her something.

* * *

 **Lightrunner, to answer your question, yes, she wants a free Edenia as well, and that's partly why she supports Mileena so much. Oh, don't worry. She's done pissed off Fujin, so she's _definitely_ gonna get hers. Eventually ;) **

**Esha Napoleon, thanks!**

 **DarkAssassin15, _someone's_ gonna fuck her up, though it probably won't be Alex. I haven't decided who he gets to fight with yet. **

**en-lumine, yeah, my thought was that all of them have these hearts of stone that need to give. And in that chapter, they started to give. ;) I'm glad that you approved of the parallels between Kenshi and his dad, and Hanzo too. You know how much I fretted about getting those elements right. Thank you again for your help!**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, well, Mileena had her mask on, so there wasn't a lot of room for descriptive clarity. But yeah, definitely her MKX mouth. I probably will incorporate Tanya's MKX fighting style when she actually has a fight scene that doesn't involve just being a bitch.**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, haha thanks! :) Until the next swerve, indeed! But when have I ever made happy endings so easy to attain? Yeah, I can't imagine it's easy being a dad in the MK universe. Being a dad is hard anyway, but then you throw in celestial tournaments for the good of all races, and bad guys looking to hurt them and their family. It's definitely rough. And Tanya will get hers, you'll see ;)**

 **Reptaliator, thank you very much. Yes, Hanzo and Kenshi are pretty good friends just like Sub-Zero and Smoke, but just like those two, they have arguments every now and then as well. Especially since Kenshi is so touchy about Takeda, and he sees Hanzo as something of a threat. I'm glad you enjoyed it.**

 **ROCuevas, I know, right? LOL**

 **Obelisk of Light, thank you. I had en-lumine to help me with a lot of that, and she's actually the one who suggested Kenshi trying to bail again. I thought it was a good idea and very heart-wrenching, so naturally, I went with it ;) Hanzo is so hard to write _because_ he's the calm one. I can't relate to that at all. But I'm glad that I'm succeeding with something that comes very very hard to me. **

**Sub-Pion, I don't recall seeing you review before, but I'm glad to see you now. :) You are really too kind, and that is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about my stories. The wolf pack order was _exactly_ what I had in mind! Good observation! :D**

 **iceangelmkx, it's okay, you know I understand that life happens. I'm just glad you're catching up! How did you like Mileena?**


	36. Blue to Black

**Author's Note: I'm sorry for the delay, I've been a bit preoccupied with my _novel_ novel. Also, I look forward to your angry emails about this one.  
**

* * *

"Anya!" the Hydromancer heard her husband cry once Kailyn and Tomas killed all of the archers above, and the remaining Edenian aggressors had fled like Tanya did. She heard his footsteps thumping towards her in the dirt, their steady, quick cadence practically shouting their worry, and within seconds, he was at her side, gingerly touching her back. "Oh, my God, Anya, you're bleeding badly," he breathed.

"Help me sit up," she croaked, straining to breathe.

"I don't think that's a good idea," he sternly told her.

"Goddamn it, help me sit!" she snapped, more worried about tending to her wounded friends than herself. The nurse in her could never quit, especially in times like these.

When Tanya had first stabbed her, she hadn't even realized that's what had happened. She merely felt like the woman had punched her, and hard. It wasn't until she felt blood gushing down her back, and then the grinding pain of Tanya's boot heel in her back that she'd put two and two together. Flaring heat burrowed through her shoulder, setting her arm on fire, rendering it useless. But it was the opposite arm that Kuai Liang grabbed as he helped yank her to her butt. Hissing and groaning through gritted teeth, she finally found herself upright.

And now she looked at her husband, studying the face she'd grown to love more than anything in the world, even now when she couldn't decide whether to forgive him or divorce him. He was mostly intact save for bumps and bruises typical after a battle, though a wicked gash notably sawed through his jaw, streaking his beard with a steady stream of blood. "Your face," she murmured gently, reaching out with her fingers to heal it.

"No, Ahn," he said as he pushed her hand away. "Don't worry about me. But Blue…" His sapphire eyes grew dark with fear. "She needs you worse, baby."

"Help her," she immediately directed him, slowly turning onto her knees. "I'm coming."

He nodded his understanding and then scrambled to the Seidan wolf to tend to her injuries and comfort her if he could. His back was to Anya, but as she crawled to them, her shoulder screaming in agony, she heard him say, "Oh, Blue. You poor, old girl." A heavy, sad sigh followed. Then: "Just hang on, Blue. Anya's on her way right now. She'll fix you up, good girl. My good, good girl."

As the Hydromancer Healer approached, Kuai Liang moved out of the way, giving her her first good look at her faithful friend. Blue lay bleeding on her side, her chest heaving in discomfort. An Edenian arrow jutted from her ribs, Tanya's tonfa from her neck. Downy white fur, which was ordinarily purer than an angel's wings, was now stained bright red. Every painful breath taken produced a pitiful whimper, and when her soulful blue eyes met her master's lavender ones, they seemed as if they were begging her to end her suffering.

"Oh, my God," she whispered, fighting down the tears building behind her eyes. The nurse in her only allowed one moment of grief, but then, it was time to get to work. "It's going to be okay, Blue," she reassured her. She buried her fingers in the soft fur away from the injuries, gently stroking the magnificent animal, Hotaru's gift to her. "You did really good, sweet girl. You took care of me. Now it's time for me to take care of you."

"Anya, you're badly hurt," Kenshi pointed out as he approached with Hanzo, Tomas, and Kailyn.

"He is right," the Shirai Ryu Grandmaster agreed as he knelt behind Anya to examine her more closely. Without her permission, he pushed aside her tank top and bra strap to peer at the deep hole. "You're bleeding profusely."

"I'll live," she barked, shrugging him away and looking up at Tomas. "Scan her, please," she asked him. "What kind of damage am I looking at, exactly?"

He started to answer, but Hanzo interrupted him. "You need to heal yourself, Annalise," he said to her. "This is far beyond simple first aid."

"So I'll use my powers in a minute," she snapped at him, annoyed. Couldn't they see how hurt Blue was? "This is kind of more important, so will you kindly get out of my way?" She glowered at him. His face was smooth and expressionless, but he inhaled deeply and now looked at Kuai Liang for support.

"Ahn," the Cryomancer sadly spoke, agreeing with his friend. He glanced at Blue with eyes full of regret. "Honey, you know you can't do both."

His words jarred her to her senses. As if he'd just slapped her in the face, she looked at him with wide, bewildered eyes. It was her limitation, she knew. Healing others with her powers came with a hefty price; it depleted her own energy as well as her body's natural healing processes. When she was perfectly healthy, this wasn't such a terrible problem. But if she herself was hurt or sick, and still she tried to heal, it stole her life force and often made her illness or injury far worse than it had been to begin with.

Anya suddenly realized she had to make a choice: it was her or Blue.

She swallowed hard and looked around, first at her husband, then everyone else. How could she make that decision? She thought of the day Hotaru gave Blue to her, entrusting her to care for one of his best tracking wolves. He hadn't been particularly thrilled to transfer ownership to a "chaosmonger," but in the end, he had let Blue decide for herself. Unlike her Earthrealm counterparts, she was preternaturally aware – to say nothing of telepathic and empathic – and therefore more than capable of making the choice on her own. And she'd chosen to stay with Anya.

She'd all but adopted the Hydromancer anyway – and Tomas to a lesser extent as well – after the two had saved her from drowning in the frozen lake beneath the Bīnglěng Dì Dìyù. After half-mauling her two rescuers out of fright, Blue had run off into the tunnels, presumably to hide, perhaps to freeze to death. Shortly thereafter, they'd all been arrested by Kuai Liang's distant kin, the Cryomancers, that reclusive, ancient race who'd very nearly put them all to death until Himavat had intervened. But to Anya's surprise, Blue had followed her to Mòhé, determined to stay close to her; Hotaru had informed her that his wolf felt indebted to her, and had returned to repay her for saving her life.

From that point on, the two unlikely friends had been inseparable. Every day in the Lin Kuei Temple, Blue had joined Anya in the infirmary, comforting the sick and the injured like a service dog – paying particular attention to the children – nuzzling and cuddling them to ease their stress and fear. She romped around with the Hydromancer when her master was happy, and when she was sad, she licked her face and curled up with her while she cried to console her. When Anya had given birth to each of her babies, Blue automatically doted on them as if they were her own cubs, helping her master by fetching toys, diapers, or bottles whenever she needed a second set of hands. She even protected them like the most ferocious mother in the world.

One time, the Hydromancer remembered, all four children as well as their parents were playing with the wolf outside in the snow when a polar bear and her cub ventured too close to the Temple. The mama bear charged as if to attack, and was met by 300 pounds of solid muscle before Anya or Kuai Liang could even react. Blue was smaller than her enemy, but not by much. Seidan wolves were also different than their Earthrealm counterparts in that they were a hell of a lot bigger. And in the end, the bear decided it wanted nothing to do with Blue's enormous teeth or claws; she, and her little cub, bolted in the opposite direction before they could think of getting close to the children.

Blue was truly Anya's best friend. The thought of losing her now ripped her in two. So how could she be expected to choose her life over the wolf's?

The nurse looked up at Tomas again. "Give me a rundown of her injuries," she said again. "Please?" she practically begged. "Maybe I can do old-fashioned first-aid on her." The cyber-ninja hesitated, glancing at Kuai Liang as if asking for permission, but when he saw his sister-in-law's eyes fill with pleading tears, he sighed and held up his cybernetic hand to scan Blue's body.

"The arrow collapsed her lung," he quietly reported, his Czech accent thick with distress once more. "The tonfa has damaged her spinal cord. She's…she's not going to make it without surgery, _miláček_. Even then, I don't think the odds of her surviving it are good."

"Thank you, Tomas," Kuai Liang irately snapped at him.

She almost started to cry, but she quickly stuffed down her emotions and stopped herself when an idea suddenly occurred to her. She looked up at Kenshi. "Are there any Tarkatan or Edenian survivors?" she demanded to know.

Bewildered, the swordsman cocked his head at her, but then put his fingers to both of his temples to psychically scan the battlefield. A few seconds later, he nodded. "An Edenian archer is still alive up there," he told her.

"Get him for me," she ordered. "Quickly!"

"Anya, what are you doing?" Kuai Liang now asked. He rested his hand on her good shoulder and looked deeply into her eyes, coaxing out a confession.

"I'm getting a power-up," she cryptically told him, though inwardly, she was thinking of the Tarkatan she'd killed not long ago after he'd nearly killed her husband. She'd stolen his life force and took it all into her soul, aging and killing him in a matter of seconds. She wondered if she could repeat that stunt, and this time use the extra energy to save both Blue _and_ herself. It was the only shot she really had.

"Kenshi, please hurry," she impatiently urged him.

Using his telekinesis, the swordsman summoned the wounded body and deposited it beside Anya. She gulped as she rubbed her hands together. Then she touched the whimpering man, curling her lip into a snarl, willing her powers to yank his life force into her own, just as she had did to the Tarkatan. She waited to feel that bizarre quirk, that strange flexing, that miracle, that curse, that transference of power. But as they had before, and anytime she laid her hands on someone, his memories became hers, and his fading memories were of an Edenia stolen from his people, and a wife he'd loved who'd been raped and killed by Shao Kahn's marauders, and children who were dragged off to the cobalt mines as slaves…and as she took this all in, she tried even harder to coax out his energy, but her hands trembled and she faltered. This man, Kenta, was innocent, unlike the Tarkatan she'd killed.

And in that moment, Anya knew. _I'm not strong enough_ , she whispered to herself.

She touched Blue on the shoulder to make it seem real, to make her own heart and mind understand that she couldn't Heal her this time. She stubbornly fought off the realization and added what little power she could siphon from the Edenian into her friend. She immediately plunged into the wolf's life force, the sense of it like fighting against the swell of the ocean, the moment happening quickly, yet not quickly enough to defeat the approaching shadow. It was in the panic she felt for her friend, the urgency even as Blue peacefully resigned herself to her fate, remembering moments that had made her happy, something serene, something inviting.

Trembling, with tears building in her eyes, she bent closer. Tanya's tonfa had left a remarkably large hole through Blue's spine, and blood had welled up from the wound, smearing it in gore, staining the snow white fur red. Because of that wound, the wolf felt nothing throughout her body. She had, Anya noticed, lost all control over her bladder and bowels, and lay in a puddle of her own filth. Furiously, she aimed a jet of water at the puddle and sprayed all the urine and feces away, washing the wolf's body clean to preserve her dignity. It was all that she knew to do to help.

"Anya," Kuai Liang said, his somber voice trailing off.

There were times Anya could recall – good times – as she melded with Blue's memories, silently sobbing. Times when she talked to the wolf about anything and everything, pretending as if she could actually answer her with words, interpreting her head tilts and little yips as if she were fluent in canine. There were snuggles by the roaring fire in the hearth, and camping trips, and lazy days at the beach. Blue loved water, and never missed a chance to jump into a lake or ocean to swim. Sweet, pleasant moments she never would have known but by mere coincidence, by some miracle, that stirred the nurse to act with mercy in that frozen lake all those years ago.

"Anya, it's not working," her husband softly told her, but she didn't listen to him.

Stubbornly, the Hydromancer pushed her healing powers further into Blue, psychically reaching out for that one particular sensation, that one feeling when she could _feel_ her powers working, but sensing nothing. _I'm not strong enough_ , she inwardly moaned again. Her plan…it wasn't working. There was no doubt of this; logically, she knew that when she tried to steal the Edenian's life force, she hadn't been filled with the hate and rage necessary to do so, not like she'd been when the Tarkatan had tried to kill her husband. She'd only felt pity for this man who'd tried to kill them. How could she not feel murderous towards him when her precious friend was dying beside her? Later, she'd have to confront her weakness and the weight of her guilt when there was no escaping them, but now was not the time.

Anya bowed her head onto Blue's snout, cradling her face in her hands, feeling her soft fur worm through her fingers. "Please, Blue," she whispered.

" _Miláček_ …" It was Tomas this time. His voice was gentle, full of the most empathy and understanding of any of them. After all, Blue had chosen him as well; he'd saved them both from the lake that day. That was the day she first told him she was pregnant with Olivia, and he'd consoled her. If she'd bothered to look up at Tomas right now, she'd see him struggling to fight down his own grief-stricken tears as well. But he brought no comfort to her, no semblance of peace like he had then.

The dark shadow was creeping further across Blue's mind, urging the wolf to relax, to go to sleep. Anya mused that neither she nor her friend were afraid. The shadow's call was not frightening, not really. But she still saw it like her enemy.

 _No_ , she told it, mentally shielding Blue from its grasping arms. _Not yet. I'm not ready._

Curling up with all the kids when they were infants, always watching them like a nanny dog to keep them out of trouble. Bounding through the fresh snow after a storm. Stretching out across the end of the bed at night, irritating Kuai Liang. Falling asleep in her food dish like a lazy puppy. Jumping up on the counters in the kitchens to steal food from the cooks. Letting Sam ride her like a horse. Racing through the Temple like a speed demon for no reason whatsoever. Hiding in the bathtub that one time the boys set off firecrackers in the hallway. Hunting wild turkeys high in the mountains, making them gobble indignantly at her while Anya and the kids laughed so hard they nearly peed themselves. Standing on her haunches against the railing on Anya and Kuai Liang's balcony, howling at the full moon from the bottom of her heart.

Shaking hard from fighting the growing deluge in her heart, Anya wrapped her arms around Blue's massive neck, burying her face in her fur, nuzzling her close. "Oh, Blue…thank you so much for being apart of my life," she whispered into her ear, her voice breaking. "Please, don't leave me."

She'd hoped that her supplication would stir the wolf to fight back, to _survive_. But the shadow pushed Anya back now, it the more powerful force between the two. Blue's body went lax, and a soft gurgle escaped her mouth. But still, the Hydromancer refused to acknowledge what just happened.

"Sister," Kailyn now spoke. "Blue is…she is…"

"Dead," Kuai Liang finished for her. He crawled closer to her and rested his hand on Anya's shoulder. His wife distractedly shrugged it off.

She ignored them. She returned her attention to the wound in Blue's spine: the tacky fur, the clotted hole seeping spinal fluid, the sensation of emptiness as she reached deep within, trying to find some speck of her friend's soul. Kuai Liang and the other Earthrealm Champions remained silent, motionless, watching Anya as she pushed every shred of her power inside the body, to hell with what it did to _her_ body in the process, fighting for a moment of divine grace which stubbornly refused to come. She just didn't have the strength this time. She'd knitted together broken bones, and delivered healthy babies that should've been stillborn, and revived nearly dead Hydromancers. But this time, she just didn't have the power to chase away death.

When her powers failed her, she resorted to old-fashioned first aid. She'd never administered CPR to an animal before, but she fought to do so now, pounding a fist into Blue's ribcage in between breathing into her lungs. Her heart gave out long before her body did, her arm still beating on her chest out of sheer inertia. With each unsuccessful blow, her frustration overwhelmed her that much more, and it wasn't long before she was sobbing as if pleading for someone to give back her friend. Pain is what eventually forced her to stop, the wound in her own back worse now from using her powers and from the exaggerated motions. Defeated, covered in sweat, she finally rocked back onto her heels, her face tear-stained and soggy.

No one spoke.

 _I'm not strong enough_ , she whispered to herself again. She wiped her eyes; her tears had chapped her cheeks and cut tracks through the dirt. _I'm so sorry, Blue_ , she thought. Her head dropped to her chest before she clutched the wolf's paw, squeezing it as if Blue could feel it.

"We need to bury her, Ahn," Kuai Liang finally spoke.

His voice startled her, and she mildly jumped from her reverie. "What are you talking about?" she snapped, irritated that he destroyed the quiet. She scowled at him.

"We have to bury Blue," he said when his blue eyes met hers. "It's only right."

"I know," she said, and the softness with which she spoke shocked her. The pain inside threatened to break loose like something loud and desperate, something like a howl.

She let go of Blue's hand, then, and laid it carefully in the dirt, thinking again of all those wonderful moments she'd shared with the wolf. Hotaru had praised her for her compassion for the wolf. Most people, he'd said, would've gladly let the beast drown rather than save her. Anya closed her eyes and saw the Seidan General boasting of her selflessness and heroism in the face of danger. She was a good servant of Order, he said, and it was lucky that Blue had crossed her path when she did.

 _More like a curse on her_ , she hissed at herself.

"We need to dig a grave," she muttered, lost inside a deep fog.

"We'll take care of it," Kenshi declared. He motioned for the others to join him, and soon, only Anya and Kuai Liang remained beside Blue while they went to work.

"Ahn," the Grandmaster said to her. She didn't quite hear him, let alone know what to say in response. "Ahn," he said, a little louder now. This time, he shook her shoulder.

She craned her head around to look at him, and her eyes met his. And then, when she saw their dark blueness, a sad color, the tears finally arrived; she couldn't hold them back another second. She threw herself into his arms and started sobbing, and rivers of salty tears rolled quickly down her cheeks.

* * *

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, not this time.**

 **Esha Napoleon, thank you!**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, LOL, I find that's an invaluable trait to have as a writer! I wouldn't want you all getting bored on me, now would I? ;) Tanya's definitely the Queen Skank, but Fujin gets his fair share of booty too! But if Mileena makes your skin crawl, then mission accomplished, my friend.**

 **Obelisk of Light, oh, very cool, I'm glad you like it so much. You _definitely_ should have seen Fujin and Tanya having a romp in the hay; I've honestly made him something of a man-whore LOL But I did have to hearken back to _Aftermath_ a bit with him and remind him of Raiden's warning. It's going to be a miracle if now _he_ doesn't go overboard being overprotective of Morgan now. But don't you worry about Tanya. I have some ideas for her ;) **

**ROCuevas, I hope so!**

 **en-lumine, well, scared is the emotion I was going for, so I succeeded. Yay! But I am so, so sorry for doing that to Blue this chapter. I wanted her to live, I did. But I couldn't. Not if I wanted to stay true to the rules I'd pre-established for Anya's healing abilities. If I violated those, I know people would lose faith and trust in me as a writer. Besides, it ups the ante a little bit. Now both Subby _and_ Olivia have to carry the guilt over her death with them, and Anya's gonna have to work through her anger about _that_. So, I think I made the right choice. But, here's some fresh-baked brownies to apologize. :( **

**PinkRedRose2, thank you! I always worry if I'm not doing my villains right. Either they're too bad or not bad enough, I can never find that good balance. So I'm glad you enjoyed my take on our villains this time.**

 **iceangelmkx, I think Anya's will is kind of fading, which is making it easier for her to forget why she's so damn mad at Subby in the first place. Not sure how that's going to go after _this_ chapter, but...**

 **Reptaliator, well, I don't think it _was_ an instance of deus ex machina. If it was, then they'd have defeated everyone in the fight _and_ saved Takeda too. No, they ran when they saw they couldn't win the fight, and they were forced to leave Takeda behind, so I feel like that's a very big difference. And don't forget, Erron's hurt pretty badly, and Olivia's not much better. So they're not out of the woods yet. **


	37. Z'Unkarah

**I am so sorry for the hiatus in updating. I kind of got involved in writing my novel, and then I was stricken with writer's block, so I spent what little free time I had rewatching _Transformers: Armada_ and _Lego Ninjago_. Hey, don't judge. Whatever clears the block. I hope this update is interesting! **

* * *

Erron and Olivia trudged towards Z'Unkarah through sunset, and slow dusk, and gathering night. But eventually, what little strength the young Cryomancer possessed failed her, and at last she collapsed in a heap in the middle of the trail, wounded and exhausted. The gunslinger, whose own injuries were rapidly knitting together of their own accord, knelt beside her, propped her up, and forced her to drink the tiny bit of water left in his canteen. She coughed and sputtered, choking on it, then rested her head against his shoulders as he undoubtedly tallied up the damage to decide if her falling was from legitimate pain or pure dramatics. There were the usual bumps and bruises that always come from fighting, as well as all the more minor injuries from fighting with the sandworm, the yurei, Takeda, Reiko, and Mileena. But the worst was the blood; she'd lost far too much of it from the gaping hole in her forearm where Reiko had run her through with her own kori sword. Between that and the blood she'd lost from her jugular before Erron had cauterized it, it was no wonder she was dizzy and as weak as a newborn kitten.

"Hey, kid, come on," he urged her. "Get up. It's not much further."

Finally, she looked at him. "I can't," she gasped. Her body just didn't _want_ to go on, not even a single step. "There's nothing left. There's nothing…Oh, God, I'm so tired." She let her face collapse onto her dirty, bloodied hands, and she quietly started to cry as she thought of her father and how he'd be ashamed to see her like this. The Lin Kuei never give up. As long as they draw breath, they always fight.

Erron opened his mouth to undoubtedly reprimand her, but then closed it just as abruptly. "Okay, kid, I've got you," he finally said. He carefully wrapped her undamaged arm around his neck and then threaded his own arms beneath her knees and back, lifting her up. "Hang on."

Olivia said nothing as Erron climbed to his feet and began walking again, this time carrying her. Miles passed by, but she ached too badly to sleep, even as exhausted as she was. Thoughts of her family tormented her as well; she still hadn't worked up the courage to ask Erron whether the yurei had lied about them leaving her. Part of her - a _big_ part, if she was being honest - didn't really want to know. If she knew that they'd left her, she didn't think she had the heart to try anymore.

The waxing moon sank behind the mountains behind them. Dawn came clear and bright as the wind gently swept through the occasional tree. Finally, the mountains parted ahead of them to reveal a welcome sight: Z'Unkarah.

Before them, rocky hills tapered downward to the wide valley below. Crystal in the rock already glinted at her, even in the early light of day, but she barely noticed the veins of onyx and obsidian cutting through the bulbous stones as Erron wound his way down from the great mountains. Immediately before them, the city stood tall over the desert, its only source of water a thin thread of silver that flowed from both ends: the Tinemilizameyali River, he told her.

It didn't take Erron long to travel down the foothills and into the vast valley, to the Golden Wall that had taken the Edenian craftsmen hundreds of years to build after the land fell to Onaga. The towering gate was the only means through it on this side, as it cut a magnificent horseshoe from one side of the valley to the other, and the Tinemilizameyali River, which ran alongside it for several miles, served as an additional obstacle for potential enemies to cross. So the gunslinger found the great bridge that would lead him through and moved openly towards the Wall.

The ramparts on the Wall were too high for Olivia to see if any guards stood atop it, just as the weapons ports were too narrow to expose anyone within, but she suspected they were there all the same. The portcullis was raised, presenting a long and seemingly empty corridor that cut straight through the impossibly thick wall, but she knew full well that it could be dropped in the blink of an eye, if necessary.

As she and Erron approached, however, she heard the blast of a loud trumpet, and she cringed, not wanting any more trouble. Almost instantly, their path was blocked by a small phalanx of warriors bearing skeleton masks and clutching the race's infamous macuahuitls. There were stirrings above, as other warriors peeked over the wall, and though she couldn't see them Olivia could somehow _feel_ a multitude of arrows aimed their way.

The guardpost's commander - Olivia knew him to be the commander, as he was the only Osh-tekk whose face wasn't covered by any mask or helmet - marched ahead of the others. He planted himself directly in the gunslinger's way, and Erron couldn't quite restrain a nod of respect.

"Minister," the Osh-tekk greeted him with a cold courtesy. Olivia wrinkled her nose in disbelief. It was odd hearing the gunslinger referred to as a minister. That was a word reserved for diplomats, for heads of state. Not grouchy, trigger-happy outlaw mercenaries anxious to sell their mother out for a single corn chip. And yet, Erron accepted the word, the title, as if he was used to hearing it.

"Commander."

"The Emperor has been expecting you."

"Then why block my way? Doesn't seem very smart, even for you."

The warrior, Tenoch, relaxed and chuckled. "Because we had hoped you would relay to the Emperor how well we do our duty here on the Golden Wall."

"You're gettin' better," the gunslinger conceded. "I barely heard you that time."

Tenoch now nodded to Olivia. "Caught another fiend, did you?" he asked. "Tell me, old friend, what could this child have possibly done to earn the attention of the Emperor's Minister of Security?"

Olivia growled deep in her throat at that, but Erron abruptly cut her off. "She ain't a prisoner," he informed him. "I'd explain it to ya, but I have to get back to the palace and talk to the Kahn. Reiko's comin', and he's got Mileena with him. They've combined their armies and are fixin' to march on Z'Unkarah."

Tenoch stiffened. "That is troubling news, Erron," he said.

"Close the gates behind me," he ordered. "No one comes through without the Kahn's say-so, ya hear?"

There was a moment of silence. Tenoch seemed at a loss. But finally he nodded and motioned for Erron to pass. "Delay not," he said. "We will begin fortifying our defenses at once."

Erron nodded and moved forward through the corridor that abruptly sprouted between the armored figures. The gunslinger and his charge passed beneath the portcullis, which quickly slammed shut behind them.

Z'Unkarah was constructed in layers, seemingly as high as the clouds. Some of those layers were created by the natural flow of the land. Others were wholly artificial: entire neighborhoods, structures and roadways, built atop ornate pillars and graceful arches. Courtyards, paved in geometric patterns, were surrounded by towers that stabbed at the sky and great step pyramids like small mountains. All were made up of sharp angles or elegant archways, and all were of the same golden sandstone construction as the Wall. Only desert trees and cacti sprouting in the courtyards, and the stained glass of the many windows provided any real color to the tableau.

Erron marched along at a stately pace, and in his arms Olivia took it all in like she'd never seen a city before, though she was careful never to be caught staring. The same could not be said of the people. All those who passed Erron and Olivia by, whether on foot or in a cart, stared until it seemed as if their eyes must burst. Most either took a couple of steps away or made a deliberate show of _not_ doing so, but few showed any inclination toward approaching them. That was for Erron's benefit, she was certain.

Finally, just as the Cryomancer was growing truly irritated by the gawking, and the wonders of this city ceased to hold any appeal, she recognized their destination. From a courtyard fenced in behind another stone wall stood a towering structure made of golden stone, its edge sharp as a ship bow facing north: the Emperor's palace. In the gunslinger's arms, she found herself at the gate, and after barking some orders at his Osh-tekk underlings to prepare for war, Erron pushed through the main doors and the guards and entered the cool echoing shadows.

"Don't speak unless you're spoken to," he now ordered her. "I know you ain't too familiar with that concept, but give it a whirl just this once."

Olivia bristled in annoyance. "I know how to behave myself," she indignantly hissed.

"These last few days speak volumes otherwise." He smirked at his own wit, but then his face went smooth and cold once more as he wandered through the halls until he came to the right place.

The Emperor's audience chamber was lit by deep windows in the wide aisles at either side, beyond rows of pillars that held up the roof. Made of sandstone, they'd been painted with a wide variety of colored animals and symbols not unlike those of the Anasazi petroglyphs she'd seen back home when her mom dragged them all to Mesa Verde. In between those pillars were life-sized statues of important Osh-tekk warriors. No other trace of ornament decorated the hall. The Osh-tekk were as spartan as they came.

At the far end of the chamber, on a dais of three steps, was a throne that looked like little more than a stone chair, and on it sat the Emperor. The Osh-tekk was not donning blue warpaint today, Olivia noted in mild disappointment, but his sun-baked skin was mostly bare save for shoulder-plates crafted from animal skulls, and he also wore a crimson loin cloth held up by three beaded belts. Crocodile teeth jutted from his ears and nose, and in that moment, he reminded her less of a stately Emperor and more of a tribal chieftain. Beside him stood four strange warriors - a yellow-skinned woman with gossamer wings, a child perched on the shoulders of a behemoth of a man, and a hooded man with glowing green eyes. She'd never seen any of them before, but she knew well who they were from her father's stories: D'Vorah, Ferra and Torr, and Ermac.

"My warriors are stirring Erron," Kotal opened, his voice more baritone than Olivia ever guessed. "I hear whisperings of war. What news do you bring from the Red Desert?"

"Reiko and Mileena," he answered, as if those two names provided all the explanation he needed to give.

On his throne, Kotal Kahn stiffened. "How sure are you?"

Erron shrugged. "Well, I could be wrong, but they chased us here," he drily remarked. "Maybe it was just a coincidence, but I'm pretty sure Reiko's not happy I took his plaything."

"Hey!" she softly yelped, flushing in anger and humiliation.

"I reckon they're a few hours behind," he continued as if he hadn't heard her.

"And _this_ is one of the children the Earthrealmers seek?"

He nodded. "Sub-Zero's daughter. Reiko and Mileena managed to take Kenshi's son back."

Kotal stepped off his throne and wandered to them, closely eyeing her up and down. With strong, thick fingers, he then gripped her chin and pulled her face up to look him in the eye. "She has his eyes," he finally mused.

" _And_ his grit," Erron added, which made Olivia sad. She was nowhere _near_ as strong as her dad.

"We no like her face," Ferra now declared before Torr roared his approval. "It ugly."

"No thanks to Reiko and Mileena," she indignantly hissed. Her head swam, and dark spots crept around the corners of her vision. "They hurt us both. Badly." She now looked at her right arm, which sat uselessly in her lap, trickling blood through the handkerchief Erron had wrapped around it hours ago. A dull, hot ache bloomed from it, shrieking up her shoulder and down into her hand.

The child laughed. "Bang-bang was stomped by Rakey and 'Leena?" she cackled in a high, squeaky voice.

"Shut up, you little rodent," he snapped at her.

"You no talk to _we_ that way-"

"Enough!" the Emperor barked.

The gunslinger scowled, clearly smarting from their recent loss, but looked back to Kotal Kahn. "I set Tenoch and his men on the Golden Wall to high alert," he reported. "And I gave orders to the men in the city to prepare for battle."

"How strong are their numbers?"

"At least 20,000," he said. "Edenian rebels and Tarkatans. Probably a few mercenaries and sell-swords. I didn't stick around to count, though. There may be more."

"And what of the Earthrealmers?" he wondered.

"I imagine they're stuck behind Reiko's army," he said. "I bumped into them at the oasis. Traveled with them for a spell before I went underground to find this one and Kenshi's boy. Told them to meet us at the cave mouth, but I didn't see them, just the army. So we headed this way. Made it to the lake before Reiko and Mileena found us again. Attacked us. Took the kid. Had him under some kind of spell."

"Do you know what they hoped to accomplish by kidnapping the children?"

"Kenshi knows where Shinnok's amulet is," he said. "Reiko wanted to use that as a bargaining chip."

"By the Elder Gods, this is troubling news indeed!" He turned to the yellow-skinned woman. "D'Vorah, take Ermac, Ferra, and Torr, and ready our defenses. Send the bulk of our warriors to the Golden Wall."

"Yes, Lord Koa'tal," she hissed in a strange voice like a thousand insects buzzing. Then she and the others exited through a door to the right of the throne.

Meanwhile, Erron looked down at Olivia. "Think you can stand now?"

"I'll try," she said, though she was remarkably dizzy, and he slowly set her on the ground. She still felt weak and wobbly, and frantically gripped his shoulder for support before she collapsed again. He caught her, and held her upright.

"This kid needs a Healer, Emperor," he said.

"I suppose, then, that it's prudent I brought several," a new voice, yet familiar to Olivia, now spoke. She didn't even have to see the speaker to know who it belonged to. Her heart leapt with joy into her throat.

She glanced over her and Erron's shoulders to look behind her. There, a woman who was beautiful like Olivia's mother before she'd been hideously burned and scarred by Shang Tsung stood at the mouth of the corridor. The skin across half her face was bulbous and transparent like melted wax, and a third of her scalp was subsequently bald. The burn scar had climbed down her forehead, blinded a lavender eye white, and dribbled down her cheek almost to her jaw. Her ear on that side was little more than a large piece of rotten cauliflower, brown and pitted with age. But even all the damage to her physical body couldn't diminish how regal she was, how strong and fierce was her countenance. It dwarfed the aura of the man who stood beside her, the King, a younger man she knew her Aunt Kailyn hated more than anyone still living. And when Olivia saw this woman approach her, she started to cry, for reasons she couldn't begin to explain.

"Mamulya!" she weakly croaked. She threw herself into the woman's outstretched arms, bawling into her long mahogany hair. The woman sank to the floor with her so she wouldn't fall, and held her tightly.

"Oh, my precious girl," Catja, her Hydromancer grandmother, said. Her voice was the most soothing thing she'd ever heard. "How on _earth_ did you manage to get to Outworld by yourself?"

"It's a long story, Mammy," she replied, her voice barely louder than a whisper, muffled by her grandmother's shoulder. "But what are _you_ doing here?"

Her Mamulya pulled away to look at her. She knowingly grinned and then pushed the hair from Olivia's clammy face. "Well, after a certain young lady went missing in the Red Desert, her parents evidently sought a frantic audience with the Emperor. Her father may or may not have been a boorish goat about it too, as Cryomancers tend to be." She smiled as Olivia laughed a little at the thought of her dad acting like a rampaging bull because she was missing. "So the Emperor, suspecting trouble was ahead, summoned all of his ministers to his court, including that young lady's grandmother." Catja clutched Olivia's face to her bosom and then looked up at the Emperor. "My people came as fast as we could, Lord Koa'tal," she said, bowing. "We left Tlachtga as soon as we received your message."

"You honor me, Queen Catja," he politely bowed. "You are the first of my ministers to arrive. It would seem that you arrived not a moment too soon."

"What of the others?" she asked.

"Prince Goro travels here with his advisors, Kintaro and Sheeva," he replied. "Motaro travels here as well. But I cannot count on them arriving before Reiko's army does."

"No, you can't," she agreed.

"Who travels with you?" he asked.

"I have brought the Falcata and the Warriors," she reported. "I have already directed them to report to your people. And I have brought most of my Healers as well. I expect they'll be needed."

"Indeed," he agreed. "You have done well. But now you must go," he ordered. "Heal your granddaughter. Make her ready for her parents. Then make your people ready for war."

Catja bowed. "Yes, Lord Koa'tal," she said. Then she kissed Olivia on the forehead. "Come," she ordered. "We'll get you fixed up." Then she glanced at Erron. "You as well, Cowboy." She winked.

"I'm fine," he stubbornly crossed his arms. "And I ain't no cowboy."

"You will go with them as well, Erron," the Emperor commanded, prompting the gunslinger to look at him in sheer annoyance.

"I don't need no witch doctor to lay hands on me," he retorted, completely exasperated by the mere suggestion.

"You are wounded."

"I'll heal."

"Not as fast as you will when the Healers touch you," he countered. "If it is true what you say, and Reiko is aiding Mileena, then I shall need you at full capacity sooner rather than later."

"But-"

"That is an order, Erron," he replied. "Help Queen Catja find suitable quarters for the child, let them Heal you, and then report to D'Vorah."

The gunslinger scowled, grumbling under his breath about witch doctors, but he finally nodded his acquiescence and lifted Olivia into his arms once more. "Come on," he barked at Catja, who couldn't help but chuckle at him. The Cryomancer couldn't blame her; this was as close to a temper-tantrum that she'd seen of Erron Black. She vaguely smiled to herself.

He herded them through the doors and up an elegant, twisting staircase that made a large, lazy loop to the second floor. It spilled into a stone corridor where the Healers and the man who'd been standing beside Catja earlier, King Anluan, stood in waiting, scowling darkly at her.

Olivia shrank against the gunslinger as much as she could. She'd gotten used to the animosity many of the Hydromancers still felt towards Cryomancers, even though they declared a tentative truce after Onaga fell, and she was mostly numb to being called an "abomination of nature" when they thought she wasn't listening. Anluan and people like him were the very reason her parents wouldn't let her walk around Tlachtga alone - old hatred just couldn't die. Right now, she didn't want trouble. Not when she was so vulnerable and weak that she could barely stand.

Anluan eyed her up and down in disgust, and then looked to Catja. "Why should _our_ people fight and die to protect a... _Cryomancer_?" His patrician nose crinkled in disdain. "We should let Reiko take her to protect the greater good. She is an abomination that never should have been allowed to be born anyway."

Catja started to speak, but Erron interrupted her. "You're a fool," he hissed. "He ain't comin' for her. He's comin' to put Mileena on the throne. He probably wants a puppet in place so that when he finds Shinnok's amulet, he faces no opposition from Outworld. This kid ain't got nothin' to do with that, so you can just leave her alone." He shifted Olivia in his arms, and then he glared again at the King. "And I'm gonna tell you this just once. This kid is as brave as any I've seen in years. So you're gonna protect her like she's your own. 'Cause if I find out you didn't, I'm gonna turn your head into a canoe."

"To hell with that," Catja now hissed as she stepped between Anluan and Olivia. "If you call my granddaughter an abomination again, I'll make you disappear off the face of this earth." She spoke with no real venom, and that was the frightening part. She was just stating a fact, not a threat, but a promise. "Now, Anluan, I think you should go help D'Vorah get our people ready. I will join you shortly."

And for all his pride, Anluan, who'd been elected by the Elders to become the King, demurely bowed his head to the Queen and said, "Yes, Lady Catja." He flashed one last look of derision at Olivia and then disappeared down the stairs once again.

Erron holstered his gun. "Arrogant prick," he muttered.

"It's times like these when I miss King Henryk," Catja sighed. "He was stubborn as a mule, but at least I could get him to listen to reason."

"Thank you for sticking up for me," Olivia said to Erron as they resumed their trek down the hall. "They've never really liked me very much. Especially him."

"It ain't nothing," he replied. "Here," he said a moment later, nodding to an open door that spilled into a grand room. "This ought to do just fine."

She glanced inside. This room had probably been occupied by many grand and powerful rulers throughout the centuries, and yet it was every bit as spartan as Kotal Kahn's throne room had been. The furnishings were simple, if well-made and well-polished. A stout chair sat behind a large table plain enough to have served a farmhouse. The only other chair in the room, just as plain and unusually set off to one side near the fireplace, sat on top of a non-descript rug woven with blue, brown, and gold threads. The bed, which stood in the middle of the room, was better suited towards a prison than a palace. And that was all of it.

Erron deposited Olivia on the soft bedcovers of her bed before wandering over to the chair by the fireplace, and then Catja snapped her fingers at the Hydromancers still lingering behind in the hallway. Immediately, a blond woman dressed in animal hide skirts rushed forward and knelt before the Cryomancer. Olivia recognized Birgette, one of the Healers her mother had personally trained.

"Milady," she said as she gripped the teenager's hands and began to Heal her. Olivia blushed at being called 'Milady.' She hardly felt regal enough right now to warrant a simple "hey you." She smelled like sweaty gym socks and old blood, with undertones of dank cave clinging to her hair.

As it always did when she was Healed, fluid power flowed through her like an ocean current, down to her very soul. It attacked all the injuries in her body, washing them away like particles of sand. Within seconds, Olivia felt them begin to knit shut, and the pain and exhaustion began to melt away. She felt warm inside, as if she were basking in the glow of the sun while stretched out on a towel at the beach. Her arm and throat took the longest to heal, but soon, even they too slowly closed up.

Birgette frowned, though. She exchanged a look with Catja, who bit her lip thoughtfully and ran her finger across Olivia's neck. "How did she come by this injury on her throat, Erron?" she asked the gunslinger.

"Yurei," was his curt response. He had currently taken to reloading his guns.

The Queen glanced back at Birgette, who wistfully smiled and squeezed Olivia's hands tightly. "The wound is healed, but you will always have the scar, Milady. Our powers cannot Heal the scars left by dark magic."

Olivia gulped. "Fantastic," she muttered. She didn't want to explain _that_ one to her family. Her father would probably call her a coward for slitting her own throat.

"Heal Erron," Catja now commanded Birgette, who dutifully obliged, even though Erron scowled at both women and muttered about witch doctors.

Then the Queen sat beside Olivia and pulled her hand into her lap, delicately tracing the lines on her palms with her fingernail. "You've had one hell of an adventure," she opened as she gazed intently into her granddaughter's eyes.

"Got that from my mind, did you?" she bitterly retorted, looking away.

Catja smirked and shrugged. "Well, _that_ , and the sad shape you were in spoke volumes. You're going to have a hard time adjusting when you return home. You know that, don't you?"

"I can't go home. Not now. I've done-"

"You've done what you've had to in order to survive." She tucked a lock of hair behind Olivia's ear. "Erron's right. You've been very brave."

The Cryomancer scoffed. "Tell that to Alex. Tell that to my mom. Tell that…" She paused, swallowing hard when she thought of the shame she brought upon her dad. It'd been so terrible that he'd abandoned her. And she couldn't even be angry at him for that. She looked down at her hand. "Tell that to my father," she murmured.

"Oh, my dear child, your family - your _father_ \- didn't come all the way from Earthrealm just to abandon you to your fate," she reassured her. "Even if your father was such a man, I promise you that your mother would never leave you. No matter what you've done, I know my daughter. She'd gladly die before giving you up."

Olivia looked up hopefully. "You think so?" she whispered.

"Yes, I do," she replied. She nodded to reiterate her point, prompting Olivia to smile. Maybe her family still cared. "They do," Catja spoked, answering the question only asked in the Cryomancer's mind. "Now, I have to prepare the Hydromancers for battle. I want _you_ to stay put here."

"But Mamulya!" she yelped in exasperation. "That's not fair! After everything I've been through-"

"She's right, kid," Erron added, now joining the conversation. "This is as safe a place as any when the shit goes down."

"I don't want to be in a safe place," she argued. "I want to _help_."

"You done pissed off Reiko," he countered. "He'll be gunnin' for ya."

"You told Anluan that he's not here for _me_ ," she hissed. "He's here to help Mileena depose the Emperor."

"Yeah, but if he can get his hands on you, he will," he retorted. "Now this ain't up for debate, kid. You're stayin' here."

"But-"

Erron yanked out his freshly loaded .45 and aimed it at her knee. "You know you can live without your leg, right?" he warned her.

"Promise me you'll stay here," Catja now urged, smiling at Erron's threat.

"But Mammy, my powers can do a lot of good. You _know_ that. Let me help."

The scarred Hydromancer sighed and smoothed Olivia's hair behind her ears. "I know you can fight and take care of yourself. You've proven that plenty of times in the Red Desert."

"Then-"

"But I want you to stay here," she cut her off. "My reasons, I confess, are selfishly motivated. When I found out that you were here in Outworld, alone, I was beside myself with worry. If something were to happen to you, I…" She trailed off, her lavender eyes lost in a distant, sad place. "You're as much a part of me as you are of your mother. So I'm going to protect you however I can. And if that means you have to stay here while we deal with Reiko, then so be it."

"Listen to your gram, kid," Erron ordered as tears now filled Olivia's eyes. She grudgingly nodded.

"Promise me," Catja said, staring her in the eyes to coax out a genuine vow.

"I promise," the Cryomancer finally conceded.

"Good girl," the Queen said with a smile as she patted the teenager on the head and got to her feet. The gunslinger joined her side.

"Lock the door behind us," he barked at her.

"What am I supposed to do?" she whined, following them. "Just sit here and wait?"

"You don't have to sit," he replied. "You can always throw snowballs out the window."

"Dammit, that's not funny," she snapped while he smirked.

When they were gone, Olivia locked the door like he'd instructed and then stomped back to her bed in frustration. If anyone deserved to take a shot at Reiko, it was her. Then again, she reasoned, her Mamulya had been scared about the prospect of losing her granddaughter. And Erron had also been right; Reiko had made it abundantly clear that he wasn't going to take her betrayal lying down. She understood why it was best she stay behind, but still got the feeling she was being treated like a child once again.

Though her stubborn pride refused to admit it, she _was_ pretty tired still, even after Birgette healed her. She'd been awake for the better part of a week, with only the occasional nap here and there to sustain her. And after sleeping on hard ground and shifting sand for all that time, that bed sure looked inviting. Admitting defeat, she crawled onto it and stretched out on her belly.

She turned her head toward the windows, then, and looked towards the cityscape, listening to the anxious bustling of the people outside preparing for war. A touch of thunder caught her ears, and in surprise, she glanced up at the sky. Dark clouds were spreading like India ink. _That's strange_ , she thought. _But then again, even deserts get storms from time to time_. Perhaps this one was an omen of things to come. She contemplated the possibility of that as her eyelids, heavy like lead, started to close.

* * *

 **Esha Napoleon, thanks!**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, I'll have to think about that for a while LOL**

 **DarkAssassin15, I'm sorry! LOL**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, *clinks glass* In memory of Blue.**

 **reptaliator, Oh, I just bring up Frozen to poke fun at the people who ship Elsa with Sub-Zero. It occurred to me one day that it could be a funny way to make light of that ship.**

 **ROCuevas, indeed! Thank you!**

 **Jlord37, I'm glad you approve of the inactivity because this recent one has been awful.**

 **Guest, why did you want Anya to die? :p**

 **iceangelmkx, I did warn you, but I'm sorry I ripped your heart out. But I'm sure your kittehs were good consolation.**

 **Spinoguyproductions, It's nice to see you again. I understand your complaint about likability, but the truth is, I designed the characters to be like that at first. I wanted them (especially Olivia and Kuai Liang) to start out as asshats so that they could evolve and change over the course of the story. They're gradually doing that. But thanks for the honest input.**


	38. Playing With Fire

**I'm very sorry for the delay in updating. A few months ago, in October, my mother unexpectedly passed away. To be honest, I haven't felt much like writing since then. Getting this chapter done was nothing short of a miracle. But I'd like to thank Obelisk of Light for her help in seeing it to fruition. I hope you enjoy it. We're finally gearing up to the final battle. :)**

* * *

For hours after Tanya's ambush, Fujin furiously led the group towards Z'Unkarah, seething with rage over her attempt on Morgan's life. He moved quickly, at least as quickly as everyone could move. Anya, still gravely wounded from the Pyromancer's tonfa, had trouble keeping up. But she didn't complain, walking instead in quiet solitude, distant and sad, and when she fell behind, he stopped so she could catch up.

The nurse had done her best to heal herself the night before after they'd buried Blue, but she'd already expended too much of her energy on trying to save the wolf, and she'd delayed her own healing in the process. So the gaping wound in her back was still there, oozing blood through crusty scabs. She was relatively unscathed otherwise, but she'd spent most of the night huddled with her knees to her chest, working hard to keep everyone from noticing that she was sobbing inconsolably. She'd sat away from the fire so that her companions couldn't see her tears, but her husband still heard her crying into her hands. So after he'd shaved off his beard to allow Kenshi to stitch up the gash in his jaw - he'd wanted Anya to save her energy for herself - he sat beside her and lovingly stroked her hair and patted her back for the better part of the night.

Finally, at dawn, Anya had finally allowed Kuai Liang to pull her to him to comfort her and to warm her with his body heat. At last she relaxed, stopped crying, and fell asleep against his chest, which actually made _him_ feel better too. His own exhaustion quickly set in and he drifted to sleep as well, his chin sitting on the top of her head, his arms wrapped tightly around her. For once since this all began, he dreamed of nothing.

Now, after a quick breakfast of sweet rice and water, the Earthrealm Champions hiked over the mountain pass, tired from climbing over old lava flows and basalt crags. This leg of the journey was far different than the Red Desert. It was still ungodly hot, the blistering heat made worse by the steam vents and rivers of fire, but at least the ground was solid and not shifting sand, which made for less achy calves. As they trudged on, the gulch their path cut through grew shallower, and its sides gradually became gentle banks, dwindling until there were no walls at all. To their left, a sheer drop-off to a valley floor thousands of feet below promised certain death to anyone who took a wrong step.

Anya walked in strange silence, prompting Kuai Liang to ask, "Are you thinking about Blue?"

She inhaled deeply but refused to look at him. "No," she murmured.

"Well...what _are_ you thinking about?" he wondered.

"Nothing."

The Cryomancer rolled his eyes. Now she was just being obstinate for the sake of being obstinate. "Yes, you are," he sighed.

"Oh, that's right," she snapped as she now glared at him. "You're the expert. Well, then, why don't _you_ tell me what I should be thinking, and I'll think it?"

"Anya-"

"Fine," she cut him off, now scowling. "You want to know what I was thinking? I was thinking that I was too damn weak to save Blue. I should've saved her. I...I just should've saved her. But I wasn't strong enough." And she burst into tears.

"Ahn, that's not true," he said, moving his hand to take hers.

But she wasn't having it. She angrily threw it off and yelled, "Don't touch me!"

Kuai Liang recoiled, hurt and confused, but didn't try to grab her hand again. "Anya, it's not your fault. She was hurt too badly and you were hurt too badly...There was _nothing_ you could've done."

"I could've taken that Edenian's life force just like I did to the Tarkatan," she shot back, not bothering to wipe away the tears that streamed down her cheeks. "But I didn't. Because I'm _weak_."

"No, Annalise, you couldn't do it because you're strong," Fujin now spoke from the head of the group. He stopped them all and faced her.

"How do you figure?" she hissed, scowling, putting her hands on her hips.

"You had compassion for that man," he replied. "A complete stranger. He'd tried to harm you and your friends, and Blue was in dire need. Yet, you couldn't steal his life force because you saw that he was a victim in this situation, the same as you. And your heart showed him mercy, which is the strongest thing anyone can do."

"How can she even do that at all?" Kenshi now wondered.

"Some Healers have this ability, though it _is_ unusual," the Wind God explained. "I expect that Himavat's tutelage has contributed to Annalise's growing strength and ability."

"What a fantastic ability," she grumbled. "I can't even use it when I need it."

"As with all of your powers, it _will_ get stronger with time," he told her.

"Will it be strong enough to use against Reiko when we see that bastard?" she hissed. "I owe him some payback for what he's done."

Kuai Liang glanced at his wife in surprise. She hadn't talked like that since Rain was still alive. She was a firm believer in the Hippocratic Oath: do no harm. "Anya-" he began, but Fujin interrupted him.

"I can't recommend strongly enough against that," he said.

"Oh, you think I can't take him?" she shot back. "Just because he's a big, bad Outworld general? You think I won't have the _stomach_ to scratch out his eyeballs and feed them to the vultures? After what he's done to my daughter?"

"No," the Wind God patiently responded. "I can't recommend strongly enough against that because of what it will do to _you_."

"I don't care what it does to me." Anya scoffed and crossed her arms as all eyes bounced from her to him.

"You _should_ ," he argued. "Stealing someone's life essence like that will temporarily grant you strength, but it _does_ come with a cost. Part of your victim's soul becomes one with yours, even after the effects have long since faded away. At best, they'll plague your memories and haunt your thoughts. At worst, they'll drive you insane. On occasion, you will even absorb part of the victim's personality into your own." He looked squarely at her. "The universe demands a life for the life taken, even if that person deserved such a fate," he said and then pointed at her. "It is why Shang Tsung was a shell who constantly needed to steal souls to survive. His power to take someone's life force cursed him to a parasitic fate worse than death. Don't _ever_ forget that, Annalise. Ever."

"You're full of crap," she shot back. "You're just trying to scare me. Well, it won't work. You saw what I did to that Tarkatan. And I've had no lasting repercussions from that. I haven't suddenly gotten a taste for human flesh and become a barbarian."

"No?" he countered. "You've _never_ spoken to me so venomously before. And your anger is far more violent and vicious than I've ever seen it. Your barbaric side is far more prominent than you think, Anya."

"Go to hell," she hissed as she took a step towards him like she meant to fight him. But at this point, Kuai Liang stepped in front of her and stopped her.

"You're tired," he said, concerned for her. "You're hurt. And you're grieving. Stop and think about this before you do something you regret, Anya."

She glowered at him. "I'm already regretting a _lot_ of things," she coldly said. "Namely the day I met _you_. It's _your_ fault Olivia is here, and it's _your_ fault that Blue is dead."

"Anya-" he started, wounded that she could say something like that.

"Just leave me alone," she snapped. "All of you." Then she wedged her way past Fujin, deliberately slamming into his shoulder to make a point, and charging towards the not-too-distant summit.

Kuai Liang, exasperated, watched her go but didn't try to stop her. Instead, he looked helplessly at his cousin, who looked back at him with a blank stare. The Cryomancer shook his head. Perhaps Anya was right. Since they'd met all those years ago, her life had been full of chaos and drama she'd never asked for. Olivia had been kidnapped because of who her father was, and now Anya's beloved friend, Blue, was dead because of it. That didn't count all the times Rain had assaulted and nearly killed her, or Frost nearly killing her, or how many times Kuai Liang's kin, the full-blooded Cryomancers, beat her for her race and her gender. And during all of this, she'd put up with _him_ , a husband who had thrown himself so far into his work that he frequently stepped all over her needs and wants in order to do things _his_ way. Yes, all of this was his fault, and she _should_ regret ever meeting him. He sighed as he watched her storm up the mountainside.

"We can't let her use that power anymore," Fujin quietly said to him, resting a hand on his shoulder. "It's too dangerous, Cousin. It's already affected her more than she realizes. Much of her anger is understandable right now. But much of it is Tarkatan rage, and I first noticed it when she nearly killed you when you were unconscious. I'd hoped I'd seen the last of it then. But now, I'm worried that was only the beginning."

Kuai Liang said nothing, only nodded his understanding.

"You are right," Kailyn's voice softly spoke over his shoulder then, startling him. He whirled around and looked at her in confusion. "My sister is tired and wounded in more ways than one. I am certain she did not mean what she said to you."

"I'm not," he grumbled.

"For some reason I cannot fathom, she adores you," the Hydromancer continued. "Her anger has always been as mighty as the ocean in a hurricane, but eventually, it _will_ give way to calmer seas once more. You must give her time."

"Time is a luxury we don't have," he replied before he took off walking after Fujin.

The group, sullen, tired, and angry, walked in silence after that. Thankfully, the journey was slightly easier now than earlier. They soon cleared the summit and emerged onto bare, stony steppes that led the way down the jagged mountain. Fujin moved quicker now, his feet practically gliding towards his destination, and now everyone had trouble keeping up with him. No one said anything as they climbed laboriously down the slope. Petrified tree branches lashed their faces and chests, and occasionally, old creepers and vines caught their legs, coming dangerously close to tripping them.

Eventually, Kuai Liang caught up to his wife, but no words were exchanged between them for several miles. Her face was still a storm cloud of grief and rage, twisted and red, her eyes hard but damp.

"Are you okay?" he finally said to her after dirt and loose rock shifted unexpectedly beneath their boots, causing them both to stumble, and her to twist her spine like a cat. She had squealed as she fell, and both landed hard on their backs. He recovered quickly, but she was slow to rise, and tears involuntarily sprang to her eyes as he lifted her up again without waiting for permission.

"Yeah," she grimaced, and started limping downhill once more. Fresh blood, he noticed, oozed around the dressings over the wound in her back, soaking through her shirt.

Ahead, Fujin started swiveling his head first one way and then another, his youthful face worried. Eventually, the god even floated onto a rough boulder jutting from the hillside just to get a better view of the opening valley, prompting the Cryomancer to look up at him in curiosity. The only thing Kuai Liang saw was petrified trees and an obscured valley floor. And then the Wind God hopped from his perch to rejoin the others, taking his place at the front of the pack once more.

Fujin then looked at his Champions and spoke. "Tarkatans are nearby," he explained, answering their question before they could ask it. "They're not far ahead. And they're with the Edenian rebels. It's Reiko's and Mileena's combined armies. They look like they're going to march on Z'Unkarah."

"Wonderful," Kenshi muttered, giving voice to the Grandmaster's thoughts.

"Olivia," Kuai Liang muttered, lost in thought, imagining his daughter caught in the battle in the city. Erron could protect her and Takeda only so much. "No," he mumbled, quite unaware he'd done so.

"We need to hurry," Alex said, his face full of urgency.

"And what do you propose we do when we catch up to the army?" Morgan countered, frowning. "They stand between us and Z'Unkarah. We're good and all, but not good enough to take on an entire army alone."

"Let us continue on our way," Fujin said, answering her question. "We can decide on a strategy when we see exactly how things are arranged below." And with that, he started marching once more.

Anya scowled and shook her head in annoyance, but said nothing as she began walking too. Above them, heavy, leaden clouds melted across the sky, promising rain. Thunder began to faintly rumble in their ears, and the occasional flash of lightning streaked across the sky. The valley began to open more ahead of them. The land at the bottom of the narrowing ravine continued to flatten; even still, their path was not straight, but rather, it meandered like a snake over hard ground and beneath rocky outcrops. And then finally, Morgan sucked down a shocked breath of air, instantly capturing the Grandmaster's attention. He followed her line of sight, and when he saw what she saw, he stared, intrigued. Before them, Z'Unkarah stood proudly over the parched valley floor, it's golden sandstone buildings tall and too numerous to count. At the heart of it, he saw the palace from where the Earthrealm Champions had begun their journey.

And then another sight caught his eye: Reiko's army. Thousands upon thousands of Tarkatans and Edenians swarmed before the outermost city wall, shouting and taunting the Osh-tekk warriors who now prepared for battle on the ramparts and walkways. Kuai Liang spotted the yellow-skinned D'Vorah barking orders at her underlings, and Ermac hovering above the gate as he watched the scene with what almost could be seen as boredom. The crazed symbiotes, Ferra and Torr, pointed and laughed at the crowd, about what, he could not say. And to his surprise, he saw Erron Black beside them.

"If he's there, then where's Livy?" he uttered to no one in particular. Kuai Liang's heart dropped into his stomach. Maybe Erron's presence on the wall meant that Livy was safe and sound somewhere in the city. Maybe that meant he could stop worrying so much. But then again, maybe not...

"There's Reiko," Hanzo now pointed out the General, who was making his way through the crowd towards the gate. He walked proudly, his gait kingly and arrogant, reminding Kuai Liang of the way Rain walked before Malphas poisoned his soul.

"Come on," Fujin said as he motioned for the others to follow him down. It took a moment for the Grandmaster to realize that everyone, in spite of themselves, had stopped in apprehensive awe and now gazed at the massive wall with mouths gaping open. "We have to help Kotal Kahn."

* * *

Rain was beginning to sprinkle on the parched land as Reiko strode across the great bridge and moved openly towards the gates of the Golden City. He was not alone. The General walked beside his adopted sister, Mileena, who donned pink and black leather armor for battle, her deadly pair of sais tethered to each hip. They passed through their combined armies and climbed onto a heap of boulders, gazing at the golden wall and the men perched upon it, their arrows nocked and aimed at them.

"Lord Koa'tal!" Reiko bellowed in a commanding voice. "Lord Koa'tal, come forth!"

For several long moments, there was no answer. And then a familiar figure stepped forward, her yellow exoskeleton shiny and glistening as if wet, her eyes like blazing pieces of onyx. "Why do you come here at the head of an army?" she demanded to know.

"I do not treat with Koa'tal's underlings, D'Vorah," he called back. "Now be a dear and go fetch your master."

She bristled, clearly offended, which amused him. But she withdrew from sight, and once more, Reiko and Mileena waited. Suddenly, another voice spoke.

"Why do you march on Z'Unkarah with your army, General Reiko?" the deep, commanding voice asked with stern patience, as if there were an explanation for this turn of events that didn't involve warfare.

Reiko and Mileena looked up in mild surprise as they hadn't heard or seen him approach the edge of the gatehouse. He stood behind the rail, his hands resting on the bricks before him. He was a strong man, his countenance fierce, his skin painted teal, his crown a headdress of feathers and beads. When they saw the Emperor, Koa'tal, stand proudly on the rooftop of the gatehouse and glare at the army as though they were a minor annoyance, Mileena hissed through her teeth.

"Easy, Sister."

"This had better work, Brother Mine," she retorted. "I want his blood."

"Have no fear," he nearly chuckled. "There should be plenty of chaos and blood for both of us soon enough, provided Tanya succeeds with the task I've given her." He looked up. "Emperor," he called back. "So good of you to greet us at the door yourself."

"What business do you have in Z'Unkarah?" he demanded to know.

"I will be direct, Lord Koa'tal," he replied. "Once, you were Shao Kahn - my father's - minister and general. You helped him lay siege to numerous realms and manage the day-to-day affairs of Outworld. You were one of his most trusted advisors, and a brother to me." Now, a wolfish expression crossed his face. "But his throne was not meant for you. It belongs in our family, the descendants of Shao Kahn, by birthright and _his_ decree."

"You abdicated your throne, General Reiko, when you disappeared and were presumed dead," the Emperor argued, unmoved.

"But my _sister_ did not," he replied, calmly crossing his arms. "Mileena is the rightful heir of Shao Kahn, and the throne of Outworld belongs to _her_."

"I am the Emperor of Outworld by the will of the people," he responded. "I will _not_ abdicate my throne to one of Shang Tsung's constructs."

"Oh, Lord Koa'tal, you should have been Shao Kahn's jester," he chuckled. "You are proud and do not love advice, having indeed a store of your own wisdom. But it is a mistake, old friend, not to listen to me now. I bear you no ill-will, even though you meet me in the company of the violent and the ignorant." Reiko glanced at Erron Black as he spoke, thinking of how he'd exact revenge on the meddling pest who kept him from claiming his prize, the Dragonslayer's daughter. That was a mistake that would be rectified soon enough. "Lord Koa'tal, are we not both great warriors and generals in my father's service? Allow Mileena to take her rightful spot on the throne of Outworld, and I will help you ascend to a greater position of power by my side so that we could heal the weaknesses and disorders in all the Realms. We could accomplish much together. An alliance between us would profit us both. For the common good, please heed my words."

"How dare you speak to me of the common good when you seek Shinnok's amulet?" he growled, his patient mask slipping for one brief moment.

Reiko tensed ever-so-slightly. But he did not waver. "Come down and speak with me, old friend," he urged. "Your wall cannot protect you. It is not nearly as strong as your blind faith in it has made it. This is true of many things you've come to trust." Once more, he glanced at Erron, flashing him a deadly smirk. "It would be wise of you to reassess your situation, Lord Koa'tal."

The General didn't even try to hide the threat in his voice. And a shadow passed over the Emperor's face before the faintest hint of fear crossed his eyes. Before he could conceal it, Reiko saw the anguish of a mind in doubt, loathing to surrender but reluctant to fight. For a second, Kotal Kahn hesitated, and no one breathed. Then he spoke, and his voice was cold and proud.

"I can hear you well enough from where I stand," he replied. "But I do not trust you, General Reiko. Your words are silver, but the mouth that speaks them is that of a snake."

Reiko chuckled in amusement. "I am always entertained by your...primitive...metaphors," he replied. "But let those who follow and fight for you consider this: the treacherous are inherently distrustful." He shook his head. "If you truly understood me, old friend, you'd know that I do not wish to kill you or hurt you. War between us is unnecessary. I have the power to make you something greater than an Emperor, and I have the power to protect you from your _true_ enemies. So I am giving you one last chance, Lord Koa'tal. Surrender your throne to Mileena and join me as I strive to remake the Realms."

"You bring only death and chaos, General," he replied. "I will not abdicate my throne."

Once more, a wolfish grin crossed Reiko's lips. "Then I'm afraid we're at an impasse."

And then, the wall exploded.

* * *

A distant rumble and a brilliant flash of light across the bed woke Olivia out of a deep but restless sleep. She pulled a pillow over her head, but it did not really shut out the afternoon light, muted as it was by the growling black thunderheads, and she didn't really want to go back to sleep. There had been plenty of unpleasant dreams, mostly like the one she'd had about Reiko killing her father. One in particular stood out to her. But she couldn't quite remember it with any real clarity, nor could she remember the others. She just knew she wanted no more.

With a sigh, she tossed the pillow aside and sat up, wincing as she stretched. All the aches she thought had been cured by Birgette were back. And her head hurt now too. It didn't surprise her. Dreams like hers were enough to give anyone a headache. She gingerly rubbed her temples to massage away the pain.

Dim light poured in through the window at a steep angle, and flashes of lightning occasionally forked through the sky. Reiko must be close now, she figured. She didn't know how long she'd been asleep, but the city was eerily quiet, as if it had collectively held its breath. Olivia scrambled out of bed, muttering angrily to herself for falling asleep. Z'Unkarah was on the literal edge of battle, and she'd been snoozing away while everyone else prepared. She stepped onto the balcony, right to the ledge.

And then: "Outworld appears to be the popular place to visit these days."

Olivia jumped nearly ten feet in the air. When she landed, her fist was already pulled back, white with frost to her elbows, her fingers beginning to curl around an ice ball. She nearly released it. But when recognition struck her, she let her weapon slide harmlessly into the air above her, and it exploded into a shower of snow.

"Raiden?" she asked incredulously as the flakes dusted their heads. Her heart pounded hard inside her chest, first for being startled, then again when she realized by whom. She hadn't seen him in at least ten years. He seldom visited the Temple; he and her father usually butted heads when he did. "I nearly killed you!" she exclaimed a moment later.

He raised his eyebrow at her, the corner of his mouth upturned in the faintest of smirks.

She shrugged at the stupidity of her own comment. "You know what I meant," she grumbled.

"Greetings, Olivia Sullivan," he said. His voice was deceptively soft, humble, even gentle.

He, however, was not.

He was clad in white robes and hard leather armor. Tall, he was both broad of shoulder and of chest, his body slender but strong. Equally white hair fell over his shoulders in a single layer. It was the hair of someone advanced in age. Old, very old. Yet, there was nothing of decrepitude or weakness in his movements, his stance, or his presence. He gave, in fact, the impression of boundless strength, held in reserve until the precise moment it might be needed.

"Hello, Lord...ah...Sir," Olivia said. Her face grew hot at her tongue's fumblings.

He faintly smiled in amusement at her, and the Cryomancer found herself feeling stupid. She wondered why he was here in Outworld, exactly. She could discern the obvious reason: Reiko's play for Shinnok's amulet. And naturally, he was here to check on, perhaps even protect, his Earthrealm Champions. But he was here, standing before _her_ , and she couldn't help but think it seemed like he was here for her alone. She gulped. She must've _really_ messed up to earn the Thunder God's notice.

But his tone was not harsh. "It has been many years," he said, sounding nostalgic.

"Um, yeah," she mumbled.

Raiden studied her. Olivia thought his smile, a bare curve at the corners of his mouth, was now the sort her dad wore when he knew something she didn't, and didn't want to share. "When last I saw you, you were but a child. You have grown much since then."

"Um, thanks," she shrugged, not terribly certain what to say to that. She met his pale, sky blue eyes with her sapphire ones. "Raiden...why have you come here?" The Thunder God's expression remained unchanged, but suddenly, she wished she hadn't asked. She wasn't certain she wanted to know the answer. She rushed to explain herself anyway. "I don't mean to be rude. I'm sorry. It's just that, of all the people I was expecting to show up today, you certainly weren't it. Like you said, I haven't seen you since I was little. And even then, it was only in passing, remember? You and my father argued most of the time. So, I just was wondering."

His amusement did fade then, slowly, as if he'd suddenly recalled something unpleasant. For a moment, he just looked at her. "I discovered that many of my Champions had gone missing from Earthrealm," he said at last. "I learned they had all traveled to Outworld in pursuit of you and Takeda. I came here to learn why you both were taken. I am certain it is a fascinating story."

"You can say that again," she muttered, now glancing away. Undoubtedly, the Thunder God had already peered into her soul and figured everything out. But now, he was waiting for her spoken confession. "I just want to find my family and go home," she sighed, wincing to fight back the sudden tears. "But it feels so far away."

"There is no mile as long as the final one in the journey home," he replied.

"I don't think my dad even _wants_ me to come home," she sniffed. "Maybe that's why he sent me away in the first place. So he could just be done with me and not have to worry about it anymore."

"Do you truly believe that?"

Olivia shrugged, turned around, and leaned back against the balcony with her arms defensively crossed over her chest. "I don't know what to believe anymore," she said, and she meant it. She looked at the ground, unable to meet his gaze. "Part of me thinks the only reason he came to Outworld in the first place was to drag me back to the Shirai Ryu."

Now the Thunder God afforded himself a chuckle before he curled a finger under Olivia's chin and pulled her face up to look at him. "Listen to me, Olivia Sullivan," he began, his face smooth and serious once more. "Your father is pig-headed and stubborn."

"No kidding," she scoffed.

"He is defiant, impulsive, and impetuous."

"I know."

"He is impatient," he continued, his voice strong and steady. "He never listens to advice."

"I _know_ ," she replied, her irritation growing.

"He has the manners of an angry goat."

"Okay, Raiden, I get it."

"He is blasphemous and disrespectful too."

"Enough, Raiden!" she yelped, now scowling at the Thunder God. "What's your point?"

His faint smile returned and he gently put his hand on her shoulder. "My point, Olivia Sullivan, is that for all that, he is also a good man," he replied.

She swallowed hard, thinking long on his words, and then wistfully nodded. "Yeah, he is." She paused as a memory came to her. "You know, Raiden, one time, he and I were walking around the city. I guess I had to have been around eight or nine at the time. It was around Christmas, and he had taken me to find a present for my mom. And this guy jumped out at us with a gun and tried to rob us." Olivia lightly chuckled at that. "My dad, of course, was _not_ having it."

"Yes, I do not doubt he would take that seriously," Raiden agreed.

"It took him about half a second to disarm the guy and shove him into the wall," she continued. "My dad could've killed the guy. Easily. At the very least, he could've maimed him to teach him a lesson. But you know what he did?"

The Thunder God shook his head no.

Olivia swallowed again. "He just asked the guy what would possess him to do something like that. He obviously wasn't a very good thief. And didn't he know that was a good way to end up in jail or killed?

"The guy just started to cry and he apologized all over himself for what he'd done. He said it was just that he'd lost his job only a couple weeks prior, and couldn't find a new one. And everyone he went to for help had turned him away. He said that he didn't have enough money to pay his rent for the month, let alone buy any food or presents for his kids for Christmas. So he was just desperate." She looked up at Raiden. "So my dad took him to the bank, withdrew a few thousand dollars from the Temple's account, and just gave it to the guy." She paused. "I never saw anyone so grateful in my life. He cried like a little baby, but it was like... _relief_."

"That was a very kind gesture, Olivia Sullivan," Raiden said.

"Yeah," she agreed. "When he was gone, I asked my dad why he had done that for the man. And he said, 'If it's in your power to show someone mercy, Livy, then you should. You get back what you put out.' I'm pretty sure he was talking about karma."

"Yes," he smiled. "I think so as well."

"So I know he's a good man, Raiden," she sighed. "But I've been so awful to him lately. I told him not to call me 'Livy,' I told him I didn't even like him, let alone want to talk to him. I've lied to him, got in fights, sassed him, snuck around behind his back. I've been such a jerk to him, and I'm not really sure anymore if he deserved it."

"You do not think you are worthy of the same mercy he showed a complete stranger?"

"I've been pretty obnoxious," she admitted. "I've been so rebellious of him and the Lin Kuei. I don't know that he _can_ forgive me. I don't even know why he should."

Once again, Raiden put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Olivia Sullivan, the flames of rebellion smolder deeply within your family, and they have for untold ages. Your family has never been one to blindly follow. From Himavat's defiance of the rules of the other Elder Gods, to Xing's betrayal of the Cryomancers, to Jae's insurrection against the Lin Kuei of old, to Bi-han's blasphemy of the gods, to your father's opposition to the Cyber Initiative, rebellion _is_ in your blood, child. It is the force that has given you power to survive your trials in Outworld. But those trials are far from over." Now he paused. "Your rebellious spirit will do you credit, Olivia Sullivan, just as it has with your father, but only if you can learn to channel it properly. The question is, now that Reiko is coming to raze Z'Unkarah to the ground, and to seize control of Outworld, and steal Shinnok's amulet, what will _you_ do about it?"

Olivia stared at the ground again and thought about it for a long moment. Finally, she said, "I want to stop him just like my dad would." She lifted her eyes to look at Raiden, but he was already gone.

She turned around now and faced the mountains from whence she'd come earlier that day, and the wall protecting Z'Unkarah from attack. Angry black clouds hung low in that direction, and she suspected that the Outworld Champions as well as the Osh-tekk were about to get rained on. Catja and Erron both wanted her to stay put and stay out of harm's way for as long as she could, and if she was wise, she would obey them. The battle in Toluca had been terrifying, and chaotic, and strange. What sane person would want to do that again? Why not just let the others handle it?

But Olivia knew that the only reason Z'Unkarah was currently in peril was because she'd pissed off Reiko by tricking him, and she couldn't just let him kill all these people without even _trying_ to stop him. She was not content to let anyone fight her battles for her, to hell with what Erron or Mamulya thought.

Immediately, she crawled over the balcony ledge and used the uneven bricks in the palace wall to climb down to the deserted courtyard.

* * *

 **Esha Napoleon, thanks!**

 **BlueLightning22, hey, thank you so much for your support. I figured that if the other characters could canonically be fathers - Kenshi, Hanzo, Johnny, and Jax - why couldn't Kuai Liang be too? I like where you're going with exploring Raiden and Fujin's relationship with Shinnok. Maybe I can work on that someday. To answer your question, Netherrealm won't really play a part in this story, so no invasion here. If I do a follow-up to this one, maybe I'll follow the events of MKX more closely. We'll see. I may retire from fan-fic after this one is finished.**

 **ROCuevas, thank you!**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, thanks, Doc! Sorry it's been so late in updating. Just trying to get back in the saddle and all. Livy definitely _needs_ a break, but when have I ever been that nice to my characters? LOL Just for you, I'll spare the Osh-tekk for a few chapters. Just a few ;) **

**Lightrunner, yeah, it felt right to bring Catja back for a spell, even though her role will be pretty small this time around. I'm looking forward to Livy and Kuai Liang's reunion too. I know exactly what I want to do for that, and I hope it gives you and all my readers a major case of the feels :)**

 **iceangelmkx, aw, thanks. I think I'm better at description than I am at anything else. Yeah, the King is Rain's half-brother, so you _know_ you have to watch him ;) Oh, you knew Olivia wasn't gonna listen to Erron or Catja. She takes after her dad lol**

 **Obelisk of Light, thank you. Well, like I told Icy, Anluan is Rain's brother so naturally, he _would_ threaten Livy. I'm glad you liked Erron's snowball comment. I was thinking of his banter with Sub-Zero in MKX when I wrote that. **

**Reptaliator, lol, let me know if you actually use that line as your senior quote!**

 **Jlord37, when you have writer's block, you're thankful for even managing to get out a single paragraph. So, yeah, that's all. But _this_ chapter was over 20 pages, so hopefully, that makes up for the brevity of the last one. **

**olivia inman, I'm trying, honey, I really am! But thank you for the support :)**

 **thereviewer, haha, yeah, I mean, seeing our heroes do inane tasks like balancing their checkbooks isn't game or movie-worthy, but I try to be a little bit more true to reality in my stories. I'm glad you appreciated that little detail so much :)**

 **Slytherin Studios, I will try! Thank you for the support! :)**

 **DannyPhantom619, true, she was. But that's what I intended for her to be because I knew that the crucible of the desert would change her. Good character development demands growth and change. From the get-go, I always wanted her to be a spoiled bitch at first. But then, I wanted her to see how good she had it, and learn what it is to be a real adult, and see the error of her ways, and in short, go through her Rite of Ascension to prove she was ready to serve the Lin Kuei. If she annoyed you as much as it sounds, then I did what I set out to do ;)**


	39. Pick Your Battles

Once Tanya had succeeded in blowing a hole in Z'Unkarah's great wall, the city was quickly besieged. Reiko wished he could see the look on Kotal Kahn's face as a fan of bricks toppled onto the rocks near the gatehouse and bedlam subsequently ensued. The Emperor truly believed his wall sheltered his precious city from harm, and for good reason. It was exceedingly high and thick, built in a time when Shao Kahn created many powerful things with his magic. Its outward face was fashioned like the former Emperor's fortress-palace close to the Sea, golden rather than black, but hard and smooth just the same, protected by charms and wards known only to sorcerers, unconquerable by conventional means, unbreakable except by some event that would destroy its foundation. An event such as the explosion Reiko had sent Tanya to create in a secret drainpipe beneath it only minutes ago…

The explosion had done its job, but Reiko knew that by no means was it enough to bring the indomitable wall down. The opening through was tiny and easily defended by the Osh-tekk warriors within. But once, he'd been a defender of that wall, and he knew well its weaknesses. That is why he'd ordered his Edenian missile crews to assemble his great engines and catapults just beyond the reach of the Osh-tekk archers, and they stood in wait for his command. He gave it, a thin but confident smirk playing over his lips as he crossed his arms. In a second, massive ballistae balls, wreathed with a mystical green fire he'd created to undo the spells on the wall, passed through the air between the platforms and their targets. And when they struck, the wall exploded in several places at once.

Not just any detonation, they were. Not columns of fire. Where Reiko's magical ballistae balls spoke, there burst a full-fledged eruption of lava. The initial blasts launched enough debris into the air to plug the sky, and even the falling rain was not enough to wash it away: dust, shattered stone, and tiny bits of what had once been Osh-tekk warriors all became a cloudy film that cast the plains into early night. Cooked meat wafted on the air, thick enough to taste, let alone smell. Jagged rock and blazing cinders rained in vicious squalls, shattering and burning whatever they struck. The ground rippled and split beneath those sections of the wall, forming a whole new array of crevices through it, granting his army immediate passage.

"Happy hunting, Sister," he said to Mileena as their combined army cheered at this early victory.

"And what will _you_ be doing?" she hissed.

"Fighting my way through, of course," he grinned as if she'd just asked him the most ridiculous question in the world. "And when I get to the other side, I'm going to find my little lost lamb. I already possess Takeda. But the Dragonslayer's daughter will be mine as well."

"Revenge does not suit you," she retorted.

"Revenge is not what I seek," he calmly announced. "Skarlet is gone. I would like to have a _new_ slave to do my bidding. Olivia shows quite a lot of promise." He looked at her. "You can't deny that a Cryomancer would make quite the fetching pet."

"You promised to help me slay the False Emperor!" she screeched, her face an angry cloud of red behind her mask.

"And so I have, Sister mine," he replied. "I have yanked down the mighty walls of Z'Unkarah for you. But if you wish to be an Emperor as powerful and feared as our father, _you_ must be the one to kill Lord Koa'tal. Otherwise, the people will not respect you. They'll call you my puppet."

She indignantly snorted. "I am _no_ one's puppet!"

He winked at her. "Then prove it."

And with that, Reiko vaulted from the boulders they had perched upon and broke into a run towards the nearest breach. He swerved randomly, never quite breaking his course for the hole, but doing what he could to avoid the Osh-tekk archers who currently rained arrows on the Tarkatan horde fighting its way through, and more importantly, to avoid making himself an easy target for Erron Black to pick off. From behind, his own archers and his bombardiers opened fire as he'd planned, saturating the sky in a blanket of detonations, less concerned with actually hitting anything than with ensuring that the Earthrealm gunslinger never had a moment to aim.

Still, it was close. Black's bullets tore into the ground uncomfortably near Reiko's sprinting figure. Bits of rock and soil flew. At one point, the General sensed a line of impacts stitching its way toward him, and he could only crouch, shielding himself with magic. His entire arm went numb as the bullet plunged into the ethereal shield, and he grunted. But then he lashed out with his powers - likely towards Osh-tekk warriors defending Z'Unkarah from the ramparts - but he couldn't even begin to see the results. He merely heard ungodly screams quickly snuffed out by a loud groaning from the wall.

One of his ballista blasted the air directly above him, showering him with flaming bits of debris. Reiko winced at the misfire, but rose and ran once more. The near miss, uncomfortable as it was, had probably also forced Erron out of position.

The General was close now, close enough to see the city through the haze and the hole in the wall. The shots from above had ceased; Black was probably waiting for Reiko to start climbing towards Kotal Kahn so the gunslinger could pick him off at leisure. Not even the great General was fast enough to make such an ascent without providing a tempting target.

Except that Reiko had no _intention_ of climbing the wall to kill Kotal Kahn. This was Mileena's battle; let her overthrow the Osh-tekk Emperor.

Drawing deep within, he put on a burst of speed, sprinting faster than he ever had towards the opening. Black quickly adjusted his strategy, and a new barrage of shots began to rain down as he took aim with his guns. Between Reiko's speed, the intervening obstacles, and the Osh-tekk warriors now swarming through to drive them back, only a few got through, and those accomplished little more than to dig chips from the rocky ground beneath him.

The wall loomed before him, growing ever closer. It was a cobwebbed mess of deep cracks and fissures, with the broken edges dripping molten magma to the ground. But Reiko didn't so much as slow. Instead, his scythe sliced through flesh as easily as parchment, whirling in murderous arcs, destroying anything unfortunate enough to meet its sharp blade. He waded through the thickest of the enemy, letting stone macuahuitls rebound impotently from his armor. His scythe rose and fell with an almost monotonous precision, leaving only carnage in its wake. It flashed each time lightning glinted off its weathered steel. .

Reiko soon leapt into the space between the wall. He stood at the forefront, where the converging forces clashed, all but daring the enemy to attack him. His cloak swirled, tossed about in a breeze created by the rapidly passing bodies and the gusts of wind from the storm, and his scythe gleamed darkly beside him. He paused, ever so briefly, and examined the field behind him. Only a score or so of the Osh-tekk warriors remained on the field, and they had been backed into a couple of awkward pockets, easy pickings for the Tarkatans and Edenians.

"I wonder," he mused idly, "how Mileena hasn't defeated them yet?"

And with that, he dropped from the gaping hole into the city, and then charged forward. Scarcely realizing he'd even moved, more of the Osh-tekk warriors fell to his scythe's deadly edge. Reiko plowed through the center of the defending army, letting their macuahuitls careen harmlessly off his own blade. He swung it in broad strokes, rending half a dozen or more at a time. Few of the warriors came anywhere near to hitting him, and those who got close found their most precise strikes parried. On rare occasion, when the sheer press of numbers threatened him, Reiko unleashed spells upon them, driving back all who approached. Heaps of shredded bodies expanded into hedges, hedges into walls, until the Osh-tekk could hardly even approach him without first digging through multiple layers of their own dead.

* * *

It was utterly dark now as the growing storm blanketed Z'Unkarah. Suddenly, a blinding flash cut through the clouds and branched forks of lightning struck the western mountains between the city and the Red Desert. For a moment, Sub-Zero caught a glimpse of the battlefield between him and the breached wall as everything glowed white; the wall was swarming with a multitude of shapes, some Tarkatan and some war-painted Osh-tekk, all armed with deadly blades that clanged like bells as the two factions fought. Hundreds and hundreds of the enemy surged through the breaches in the wall, relentlessly pushing forward. Thunder rolled over the land. Rain, which had begun as a light sprinkle, now cascaded down.

Edenian arrows as thick as the falling rain sailed over the throngs of warriors and onto the battlements, killing more than a few Osh-tekk and Hydromancer warriors as they struggled to cast down the Tarkatans scaling the wall. Over and over, the lightning drove back the darkness. Then the monstrous beasts roared as they banged their armblades on their chests to frighten their enemy, and as they did, more Edenian arrows soared at the battlements, killing even more of the defenders.

Angry trumpets blasted as the invaders pushed their way through the wall and into the city. Lightning flashed, over and over, as they pressed on. But they were met by strong resistance when the Osh-tekk began to rain their own arrows upon the horde, and they flung stones and Greek fire with catapults from the ramparts. Explosions rocked the battlefield, igniting the drought-dry grass into pillars of twisting flame. Soon, the air was choked by black smoke that made it hard to see. The Tarkatans wavered for a moment, and even began to retreat and scatter, but Reiko's Edenian commanders screamed at them to stand their ground, and once again, they began to push forward.

Sub-Zero stood with Kenshi and Scorpion behind the enemy lines, surveying the chaos through the thick haze. The roar of battle was deafening, calling to mind memories of fighting the Dragon King and his undead army, and it grew even louder now that the Tarkatans were pummeling the wall with a battering ram to break apart the portcullis. Another flash of lightning revealed that the gates had been bashed nearly open now.

 _Livy_...Sub-Zero winced as he thought of his daughter caught in the bedlam somewhere. If there was a God at all, he'd make sure she'd barricaded herself someplace safe, someplace where these bastards couldn't get to her before he could. The guilt from when he'd betrayed Olivia by sending her away had gnawed at him incessantly since he'd left the Temple. But this was almost worse; he had never, in all his life, felt so craven. Never in the face of danger, of battles that drowned entire Realms in blood, had the Grandmaster truly feared the death of anyone caught in the mayhem. But now, for the first time, it had seized him in a grip he could not break.

He wasn't quite sure how he wound up on the other side of the massive wall, but he faintly remembered someone - Scorpion, he thought - shout at him to wait. But the Cryomancer had already slid through pulsating sheets of white ice while a hundred ladders were raised against the battlements and Reiko's army came sweeping over them like a wave on a hill of sand. The defense crumbled, but Sub-Zero scarcely noticed. His attention was fixed on _his_ mission: finding Livy.

"Olivia!" he bellowed, over and over again, hoping to hear her answer him. But he heard nothing except the sounds of battle. He was consumed with worry for her, and that fear grew every second he did not hear her reply. Perhaps she just hadn't heard him. But he couldn't help but imagine she was already dead. Perhaps she wasn't even in Z'Unkarah at all; perhaps her corpse was still in the caves with the yurei. At the thought, he shouted even louder for her.

Some stray Tarkatans noticed him searching for her through the melee and broke off from the main horde to attack him. One swung its armblade at the Cryomancer's face, but with his quick reflexes, he leaned backwards in an impossibly graceful arc. The bony weapon barely missed his chin; had he still possessed his beard, the Tarkatan would've given him a close shave. Then two more lunged at him from either side. Snarling, he threw out his ice-charged hands and promptly froze them into place. The first of the bat-faced beasts recovered by this time, but as he charged towards Sub-Zero once more, a kori sword sprang from his hands. One twirl, then two, and the Grandmaster deflected the Tarkatan's armblade before running him completely through.

"I'm too busy for this nonsense," he grunted as much to himself as to the groaning, dying beast. Coldly, he snapped his foot into his chest to get him off his sword.

Suddenly, loud, cracking shots rang out before a hail of gunfire passed overhead. Startled, he looked up in time to see Erron firing his shotgun at the fight on this side of the wall. Frowning, he followed the gunslinger's gaze towards his intended target. Quickly, Sub-Zero's eyes found Reiko, who was storming towards the distant palace. Erron fired again at the General, but Reiko calmly held up a red-wreathed hand and deflected the spray of shot with some sort of magical shield.

Frustrated, Erron's kohl-smeared eyes glimpsed Sub-Zero. He instantly pointed towards the palace. "He's going after your kid!" he shouted only a second before a Tarkatan pounced on him and yanked him from view.

But the Grandmaster had already lost interest in the gunslinger. The moment he realized that Reiko was after Olivia, red washed over his vision and he bolted after him to stop him. Thick, roiling fog wafted from his ice-charged palms, inadvertently freezing the Tarkatan blood and gore that dripped from the kori sword still in his hand. His free hand lashed out at any enemy who came too close. Icy statues of Tarkatans and Edenian rebels sprang up one by one behind him. As he gained on the General, an ethereal blue ball of cryogenic energy formed in his open palm. Sub-Zero soon lifted it into the air and prepared to fling it at the bastard. It started to fly from his grip…

...And then a strong arm snatched him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him backwards. Sub-Zero looked up in surprise as his ice ball exploded into a harmless shower of snow that instantly dissolved in the falling rain. Before him stood a humanoid man unlike any he'd ever seen before. The smoky air seemed unwilling to touch him, as did the rain, which avoided him in short, sharp streaks. The soles on his age-worn boots remained on top of the slickest layers of mud, almost as though he was weightless - or perhaps, again, it was merely that the puddles of filthy water wanted nothing to do with him.

Hair as black as a shadow was pulled into a topknot at his crown by a galea helm after the Roman fashion. Below, stained folds of blood red fabric whipped and trailed over his shoulder and from the back of his belt. The dark leather and piecemeal armor he wore was equally grimy. The skin of his torso, shrunk tightly over his wiry frame, was the dull gray of a corpse. In one hand, he clutched a morning star and twisted it idly in his palm.

Only his face retained some semblance of cleanliness, but that was due, in part, to the exposed skeleton from the cheeks down. It was its original bone-white, and glistening. Somehow, Sub-Zero found the lack of any facial features disturbing.

"And where, precisely, are you going?" he asked. Even though he lacked muscle and tissue to convey any emotion, the Grandmaster recognized the sneer in his voice anyway.

"Who are you?" he snarled.

"I am called Havik, Dragonslayer," he replied. "And you seem shocked. Have you never encountered a Cleric from Chaosrealm before?"

"I'm not shocked," he spat. "I'm annoyed. You're in my way."

Havik chuckled a bizarre, rasping laugh. "I'm afraid I can't allow you to pursue Reiko. He tries my patience, but he _does_ have his uses."

Sub-Zero was already done talking. But just as he was about to lob an iceball at Havik's face, the Chaosrealm Cleric swung the morningstar into his left arm just above the elbow. Bones crunched, hot blood sprayed from the wound, and the Grandmaster howled in agony as the sharp barbs dragged through his skin like white-hot nails. The pain was blinding, and it lasted for an eternity. He wilted, moaning as the barbs kept him propped upright. Finally, though, Havik withdrew. With a wet, ripping slurp, he yanked the weapon away, and when he did, Sub-Zero instinctively curled his hand into a fist and drove it into his enemy's jaw.

Teeth flew and now the Cleric moaned in pain as well as he stumbled backwards. The Grandmaster wasted no time climbing to his feet, his left arm dangling uselessly at his side, undoubtedly broken. Gingerly, he felt his wound. Flaring pain roared through his arm, into his shoulder, and over his body as his fingers brushed stringy bits of bloody meat. On the underside of his arm, part of his bone jutted through the skin.

"Anya," he panted almost inaudibly while he froze the gushing tissue. He staggered, the shock from the trauma washing over him in dizzying waves as he thought of Anya, who was far behind him now.

Havik, evidently not as wounded as the Cryomancer, snarled as he charged towards him, twirling his morningstar. Without giving Sub-Zero the chance to react, he gracefully danced around and swung the monstrous club at his head. The Grandmaster barely had time to duck before it took off his head completely, and as he dropped low, he produced a kori sword in his good hand to deflect the attack. The morningstar was far heavier, however, and when the weapons collided, his sword shattered like glass.

Havik brought his weapon down once again, but this time, Sub-Zero rolled out of the way as he flung his good arm at the Cleric, and with it came a spray of wet, heavy snow that exploded towards him. The force behind the motion shoved the snow into hard spheres that careened into Havik's shins, knocking him to the ground. It was his turn to cry out in pain as a sickening crunch filled the air.

He was still not as damaged as the Grandmaster, though, and once again, when he recovered only a moment later, he chopped his morningstar at his head. His reflexes were so quick that even Sub-Zero couldn't scurry out of the way in time. But as the Cryomancer helplessly watched the club soar towards his face, it suddenly stopped only inches above him. Blinking in bewilderment, he now noticed that a crackling lasso of lightning held Havik's arm in place. Showers of sparks rained down on either side of his head. The Cleric groaned as if fighting some invisible restraint, except that the person restraining him was towering behind him, pulling him backwards like he was controlling a marionette on strings.

"Raiden?" he breathed in disbelief.

"Go," the Thunder God's voice boomed. "Your daughter needs you. I will keep this one preoccupied."

* * *

"Protect the Kahn!" Erron yelled at everyone on the battlements as Tarkatans swarmed up the wall like locusts, howling and frothing from the mouth like rabid wolves. Their shrieking cacophony drowned out the building thunder and claps of lightning, heralding even more of the bat-faced monsters.

He fired round after round at the invaders, and around him, smoke heavily perfumed by sulfur wafted like a fog. He turned around just in time to see Catja, the Hydromancer Queen, run a Tarkatan through with her spear. But unbeknownst to her, behind her, another Tarkatan was crawling over the side, his armblade threatening.

"Look out!" he shouted at her, yanking her to the stone a moment before the Tarkatan's sharp blade chopped an ugly trench into the bricks where she was just standing. Taloned hands pulled the monster over the side, and it stood tall over both of them, its fanged mouth snarling and drooling. Panting hard with exhaustion, the gunslinger still managed to lift his Colt .45 and aim. He pulled the trigger. Instantly, the bullet burrowed a hole through the middle of the Tarkatan's skull, exploding out the back in a fine spray of blood and brain matter. Dead, the creature collapsed, but like a hydra, several more sprang up in his place, and Erron and Catja continued to kill them as quickly as they could.

Bedlam ensued. The Tarkatans now swarmed over the wall, their armblades flailing. The Outworld Champions and the Hydromancer Warriors scrambled around to destroy them and drive them down. Kotal Kahn slashed through the invaders with his macuahuitl, using brute force as much as any kind of grace, even though they were crammed around him shoulder to shoulder.

To Erron's left, D'Vorah made short work of three Tarkatans, having ripped off her cloak and let her ovipositors run wild. They burrowed into Tarkatan chests with a loud crunch, and within seconds, she yanked them out to reveal their still-beating hearts impaled on the ends. When one foolish monster tried to attack her from behind, she whirled around and sent a cloud of wasps at him to counter. He shrieked as her 'children' violently stung him over and over again.

Ferra and Torr fought beside her, and Torr lumbered along slowly, pounding Tarkatans that came too close into bloody jelly while his rider cackled like a crazed witch. When the rare invader had enough sense not to take _him_ on man to man, Ferra leaped from her perch on Torr's back to eviscerate them with her _own_ armblades. Metal met bone with an unexpected clang, the strange music echoing lightly over the sounds of battle around them. For such a little thing, Ferra was remarkably good at holding her own. She matched the towering Tarkatans step for step, her blades matching theirs stroke for stroke.

"You no hurt Big Bossy!" she shrieked at one point.

Close to Kotal Kahn, Ermac shimmered and faded into an ethereal green mist only to reappear moments later behind his startled opponents. His telekinetic powers reached out, seemingly of their own accord, yanking souls from Tarkatans as easily as he yanked out their viscera through their mouths. With blindingly fast speed, he lifted them into their air and contorted their bodies into unnatural shapes, twisting them into pretzels. He was a frightening opponent on the battlefield.

The same was true of the Hydromancer Warriors and Falcata, who fearlessly defended their Emperor as they formed strange weapons and whips with water. An uncanny aura of calm surrounded them; it was somewhat unnerving how cool and collect they were as they drowned Tarkatans in floating orbs of water high above the ground, or as they lashed them and knocked them over the wall to their deaths. They killed their enemy with an odd matter-of-factness, like war was as normal to them as breathing. Rain was like that, the gunslinger recalled. He had ice water running through his veins in battle as well.

Suddenly, something sharp slammed into Erron's back, smashing him into the brick wall face-first. His guns skittered away as he fell. Fire now seared through his muscles while blood poured from his split lip. Catja flew to the ground beside him, her hands gingerly pawing at the sai now jutting from her abdomen, unable to breathe. He understood; open-mouthed, gasping for air that wouldn't come, he turned onto his back to face his aggressor. Standing over them was Mileena, who still clutched a single, blood-stained sai in her palm. With a taunting smirk, she slowly ran the blade across her tongue, savoring the flavor of his blood.

"Mmm…" she moaned. "Tasty."

As blood streamed down Erron's back in hot rivulets, and he trembled from the shock of the attack, he strained to grab her but couldn't. His back and chest were constricted by heavy metal bands that refused to let him move. She'd nailed him good. Chuckling, she kicked him in the cheek so hard he thought his jaw came unhinged.

"Does that hurt, Darling?" she teased in her sultry, smoky voice.

"Not as much as it's gonna hurt you," he croaked, straining to pull himself up.

"And what do you intend to do?" she mocked. "Just sit there and bleed on my boots?"

"Mileena!" Kotal Kahn's voice suddenly bellowed. She hissed as she turned around and saw the Emperor approaching. "Your rebellion is at an end!"

"As is your reign, _False_ Emperor!"

With that, she lunged at him.

"Erron," Catja now whimpered. She slowly turned her scarred head towards him as she held the sai still jutting from her stomach. Tears streamed down her face. "Erron...Reiko...he's after Olivia, isn't he? I saw him. He passed through the wall."

"Yeah, pretty sure he is," he nodded, still trying to catch his breath. "But so's her pa. Saw him go after Reiko."

She squeezed her one good eye shut and sighed in relief. "Good. But I want you to go after them too."

"Ain't no way," he told her. By now, he'd recovered enough to sit up and grab his guns. "I've gotta defend the wall and the Emperor. Besides, she's fine where she's at. Safer than we are, I reckon."

Catja bitterly scoffed as he now helped her lean against the wall. "Do you really believe that?" she said. "Do you really think she did what we told her to do?" Erron frowned and started to speak, but she cut him off. "She's just as stubborn as her father. Cryomancers...they're all just so defiant."

The gunslinger scowled because he knew she was right. Olivia couldn't do what she was told without any sort of big to-do beforehand, and her little hissy fit in her temporary quarters far from qualified. In his heart of hearts, he knew she'd given in just a bit too easy. "Goddamn kid," he cussed.

"I'd go after her myself if I could," the Queen started. "But I'm a bit indisposed at the moment." She looked down at the sai and then back into Erron's green eyes. "Neither she or her father truly understand what Reiko's capable of, not like you and I do. Please, Erron. I don't have much to give you as payment, but I'll give you what I have. She means the world to me. She's what Halsey and I fought for all those years ago." When the gunslinger hesitated, contemplating whether or not he _should_ go after that stubborn mule of a child, she lifted her bloody hand and caressed his cheek with her fingers. "I know there's a part of you that gives a damn about her too, Erron," she said. "Maybe because she makes you think about what Shang Tsung did to Daisy all those years ago."

Erron frowned at her unnerving candor, which was the hallmark trait of every last goddamned Hydromancer, and then he leaned against the wall and blasted a Tarkatan who suddenly lunged for them. His head exploded in a cloud of gore. Then the gunslinger thoughtfully looked up at the Kahn, who was in the midst of his own battle with Mileena right now, and holding his own from the looks of it. The others - D'Vorah, Ferra, Torr, and Ermac, seemed to be doing just fine taking care of the rest. His presence here, he decided, was probably superfluous. The Outworld Champions could handle the wall. But Lord knew that kid of Sub-Zero's had a knack for running headfirst into trouble, and today, that trouble just happened to be Reiko. The Queen was right. That girl needed his help, and a hell of a lot more than the Kahn did. He coughed as hot blood dribbled down his backside, then looked at Catja.

"Oh, fucking hell," he grumbled, climbing to his feet. He now glared at her. "Just give me your word that when this is over, she'll stay the fuck out of Outworld. Where she goes, trouble follows."

"After this, I doubt she'll ever want to return," the Queen chuckled as a slightly amused smile crossed her face.

* * *

Kenshi emerged onto the streets of the Golden City with Scorpion, who'd teleported them both in a tunnel of fire. He did not like his friend using the ghastly remnants of his Netherrealm powers, as Raiden had warned both him and Bi-han that doing so flirted dangerously close with their still-living inner demons, but the Grandmaster of the Shirai Ryu seldom used his hellfire except when the situation was absolutely dire, and now was one of those times. After Sub-Zero had bolted off in search of Olivia, the blind swordsman thought it best to follow him in case his path led to Takeda. He touched his fingers to his temple, searching for his son.

"Well?" Hanzo prodded after driving back a couple of Edenians who'd foolishly attacked him. They now slumped on the ground, eviscerated by his katanas.

"I can't sense him," Kenshi said in frustration and mild worry to his old friend. "But I think he's at the palace."

"What makes you think that?" the Shirai Ryu asked.

"Nothing," he shrugged. "But it is where _I_ would take Takeda to keep him safe if I were Erron. It _is_ a fortress, first and foremost." Then he half-smiled. "Also, Kuai Liang is heading there as we speak, looking for his daughter."

Hanzo shook his head, but withheld the irritated comment dancing on his tongue. "Very well," the other said. "Let us proceed there as well. He will probably need our help."

"Yes," Kenshi agreed. He just hoped that Takeda had made it out of the caves with Erron and Olivia.

The two warriors began to march at a quick and steady pace towards Kotal Kahn's palace, easily killing any Tarkatans or Edenians who attacked them on their way. But as they approached the center of a lengthy bridge over a deep crevice that ripped through the city, an unpleasant but familiar prickling suddenly brushed at the swordsman's brain, drawing his attention. Something primal whispered to him in a voice as ancient as all the Realms, startling him, and - _frightened_ \- him. Someone new was following them. Someone dark and full of malcontent, his soul twisted and corrupted by sinister magic he'd not felt since Onaga resurrected dead friends and enlisted them to fight for his army. And yet...Kenshi _knew_ this person. Even before his ancestors whispered his identity to him, even before he could tell what shape the newcomer would take, he knew who approached.

"Hanzo," he sadly spoke, grabbing the man by the shoulder. His heart sank into his stomach as dread washed over him in waves.

The Grandmaster looked at him but said nothing, immediate understanding registering in his mind. Both men slowly turned around to face the new threat against them. A young man stood before them, not markedly different from any of the other young warriors Kenshi had ever seen in his lifetime. He was not a Tarkatan, but he donned spiked Tarkatan armor, the thick, angular plates primarily protecting his shoulders and chest. It was massive and imposing, but perhaps a bit plainer than was the norm for his monstrous allies. It lacked the giant spikes, though what adornment it _did_ have was just as unsettling.

"Takeda…" Kenshi trailed off uncertainly. This was his son, but something was off about him, like he was there but not.

Not all the swordsman's wary suspicions, his caution, his telepathic powers, or supernatural reflexes could've provided him with sufficient protection against what happened next. When Takeda lifted his arm, the gesture had also, however unobtrusively, snapped a metallic whip adorned with razors at him and Hanzo. The cracking blow was enough to topple the Grandmaster, howling in pain, to the roadway. Kenshi, stunned by the shock of it more than he was actually hurt, still managed to stand unsteadily on his feet…

Only to be bowled over by his son, who had leaped into the air the instant he struck his elders. He succeeded in shoving his father back only a few more steps, but Takeda had chosen his moment well, and a few steps was all he needed. The two of them, father and son, tumbled over the side of the bridge.

Sento soared to Kenshi's fist at his call, but by then they'd already fallen too far for him to do anything useful with it. Nor could he lash out at his attacker, for Takeda was still his son. Besides, his son had already used his whip against the railing above, catching himself before he could fall any further. Kenshi, however, plunged straight down. There were no bridges or protrusions near enough for him to reach. There was nothing he could do but ride it out until he reached the ground, some five or six stories to the bottom. Oh, yes, Takeda had chosen his spot _very_ well.

Quickly, the swordsman reached out with his powers and caught himself inside the protective ethereal cocoon he'd made for himself. In moments, he reached the bottom of the steep ravine, but he landed as lightly as a feather on a windless day. Only moments after that, Hanzo emerged beside him, stepping from a twisting portal wreathed in flames.

"That was...unexpected," the Grandmaster drily remarked.

"Are you sure about that?" Kenshi shot back. Perhaps Hanzo had underestimated the boy's need for vengeance against his father. But no, this was different, he quickly decided. His son didn't seem to feel anything, including rage. His friend looked at him in puzzlement but didn't answer him. He merely gripped his shoulder and yanked him back to the bridge where Takeda stood, calmly waiting for him.

" _Deshi_!" the Grandmaster barked at his pupil, trying to regain control over him. "Stand down. This is not the time nor the place for petty quarreling with your father."

The boy merely cocked his head and blinked at him, as if he did not recognize his mentor, so Kenshi reached into Takeda's mind to explore his logic. There was no cohesive thought process driving him, only instinct. Not an overabundance of complex emotion swirling through his brain like he expected, but rather, the exact opposite. It was spartan inside, void of excesses and exceedingly ancient. Outworld's way of reducing every problem in existence to dire alternatives - shoot or starve, kill or be killed, shelter or suffer - had clarified his soul, purged it of unnecessary thinking and its constant search for compromise. He was, Kenshi realized, quite incapable of obeying Hanzo's command.

"Takeda, my son," he gently spoke, holding up his hands as if to calm a wild beast. He knew it was an exercise in futility - whatever made Takeda _Takeda_ was completely gone at the moment, as if the boy had checked out from reality - but he had to try anyway. "I've been looking for you. Hanzo and I both have been looking for you. We've been very worried about you and Olivia both. But it's okay now. We're here to take you home. You're safe."

The teenager blinked again. "Safe?" he repeated, trying to make sense of the word.

"That's right," he nodded. "Reiko can't hurt you anymore."

"But Reiko is the one who freed me."

Kenshi heard the crack of air before him, saw the ambient dust and smoke swirling in his mind's eye, yet his reluctance to use his powers against his son rendered him just a hair too slow. Agony ripped through his chest, his innards, and it was all the swordsman could do to bite back a scream as the razor blades on Takeda's whip shredded through his torso.

* * *

Gliding over the battle at Z'Unkarah's mighty outer wall, towards the skirmish just on the other side, desperately searching for one villain above all others, was Fujin. He appeared over the hazy air above the wall as though born from the heavy, choking smoke and dust that swirled over the battlefield. Under the heavy thunderclouds, the darkness would've been absolute had multiple fires not erupted and lightning not strobed over the land, burning it white every few seconds. Still, it was hard to pinpoint his quarry in the melee. She was treacherous little fox, cunning and ruthless, and an expert at blending in to her surroundings.

None of Tanya's tracks remained near the decimated drain she'd blown up only minutes prior; the still-settling dust from the blast, along with the large chunks of debris, ensured that any trace of her was gone. Fujin occasionally spiraled upward, searching for her from high above, hoping to catch a glimpse of her fighting the Osh-tekk warriors, but there were too many people swarming over the field, and the pouring rain obstructed his eagle vision even more. But he _had_ to find her; the memory of that witch nearly killing his only daughter, his precious, precious Morgan, blared through his brain. He would not rest until he dragged Tanya to the highest mountain and dropped her off the top.

And then finally, when Fujin had _almost_ come to his senses and nearly rejoined his Champions as they battled on the ground below, he caught a glimpse of brilliant yellow in his peripheral just as lightning struck the spire-top flag on top of the gatehouse. He flinched as a shower of sparks exploded at him, and the motion directed his vision towards her fighting an Osh-tekk near the gaping hole in the wall. Instantly, he flew on a hard wind towards her, diving at her like a rocket. Just as she struck her opponent down, the Wind God landed before her and immediately thrust his hands at her with all his might. The gust of wind that exploded from his hands lifted her into the air and cracked her into the wall like an egg. It all happened so fast that she didn't even have time to squeal in surprise.

Tanya grunted and whimpered, slow to get to her feet. But by the time she stood up, Fujin had already summoned his golden crossbow from the ether, aimed it at her, and fired a shimmering bolt towards her head. Somehow, she pivoted to the side and caught the bolt in her fist. She studied it intently, and then she smirked at him with her amber eyes, the corners crinkling in amusement and conceit.

She grinned while she clicked her tongue in feigned disappointment. "My sweet Lord Fujin, _you_ taught me how to catch arrows. Why on earth you'd bring a bow to this fight is beyond me."

Fujin scowled. "Did I ever teach you what I do to mortals who threaten my family?" he hissed back.

She chuckled lightly. "Perhaps you should teach your family to stay out of matters that do not concern them."

"You almost killed my daughter!" he now roared. Unbelievable. It was absolutely unbelievable how easy it was for her to get under his skin.

" _Almost_ ," she shrugged. "But I didn't actually succeed, judging by your choice of words. I take it you saved her in time."

"Pity there will be no one here to save _you_ ," he retorted.

* * *

Olivia was gradually making her way towards the battle in the distance, yelling at the stray civilians still on the street to get inside and hide. Most of the Outworlders obeyed her, but there were a few stubborn ones who wouldn't be coerced until she formed a kori sword in her hand and revealed her true Cryomancer heritage. She had no illusions that she was as ferocious as her Outworld kin, but the people of Z'Unkarah were all too familiar with the might of her people, and some of them had seen firsthand the carnage and devastation the Cryomancers were capable of, so they decided they wanted no part of what she had to offer. Olivia would gladly take their fear if it meant saving their lives.

Suddenly, an explosion rocked the earth so hard that the ground still swayed miles away, and she heard distant shouting coming closer. Without warning, she bolted towards the battle now, completely oblivious to the torrential downpour soaking the parched dirt. A nagging feeling tore at her heart. Guilt. She couldn't leave these people to their fate. Not now. Not when she'd led Reiko and Mileena straight to Z'Unkarah. She had to help them drive out the invaders, or die trying.

Olivia was a fast runner just like her mom, and it only took her a few minutes to reach the wall dividing the wealthier part of the city from the poorer ones, but she did not slow. But as she crested around a corner, the ground before her swayed violently again in time with the shock blast from another distant explosion. With a startled yelp, she stumbled and fell into a mud puddle as the ground groaned and recoiled beneath her, causing stone and mortar from crumbling buildings to sift upon her head.

Only moments later, as she was tentatively looking up to see if it was safe again, a menacing figure approached her. The distant fires illuminated him from behind so that all she could see was the black silhouette of someone tall and muscular. But the shadow of a menacing scythe jutted from his grip like the wing of some unholy creature, and that screamed more about his identity than anything else could've.

"Reiko," she breathed, simultaneously angry and afraid. She wasted no time scrambling to her feet, though the ground was slippery beneath her worn tabi boots.

She lifted her hand, which now cradled a blue ice ball in her palm, and poised to throw it at him. But this time, it was _she_ who froze into a stiff statue. The ball in her hand faded away into the same ether that had produced it, chilling her fingers and turning more than a few droplets of rain into snow. Terrified, Olivia tried to pull herself free of the invisible hand clamping down around her, but she seemed petrified and fixed in place, only able to stare at the approaching General in shock.

"Oh, my sweet child, what's wrong?" Reiko asked, a predatory grin playing across his lips. It was a rhetorical question. Before she could answer, that invisible force that held her in place now yanked her back. Startled, she screamed as it threw her on her face and started dragging her through the mud towards him.

"No!" she wailed, grasping for anything to stop her momentum. Her fingernails dug trenches through the slimy muck.

Soon, she stopped, but only because he'd allowed it. The Cryomancer looked up in time to see Reiko swipe his scythe across her back without actually cutting her skin. It took a moment for her to register that he was just trying to frighten and intimidate her, and hadn't actually touched her yet. She screeched in terror anyway, certain he'd just cut her in half while she was helpless to resist. But he calmly stretched out his arms to grab her by the collar before he lifted her to her feet, his spell over her now broken. Olivia staggered a bit and didn't see the punch now aimed at her face until it was too late. The blow easily knocked her into the stone wall of some dilapidated building behind her.

"You've got Takeda," she gasped as she slumped against it, the texture scraping hard against her cheek. "Please, let me go. I want to go home. I want my mom. I want my dad."

If he heard her, he didn't care, nor did he respond. Shaking like a leaf, the Cryomancer woozily braced herself on the wall and used it to pull herself up. Her jaw felt swollen and hot, and blood and drool dribbled from the corner of her mouth. He'd hit her hard, and she was far too slow to recover.

Suddenly, another solid punch connected to the Cryomancer's back from above, driving her into the dirt with a loud grunt of pain. She then fought for air; she gasped for breath like a fish out of water, her mouth making that strange o shape, but for several long seconds, nothing came. She slowly rolled onto her back just as Reiko reappeared in her sight, standing above her. Olivia, who was starting to recover her breath, wasted no time kicking her attacker in the groin. The General was clearly not expecting that counterattack. He stumbled backwards, groaning in agony and holding himself as she immediately flopped onto her side and tried to slap the ground with her ice-charged palm. But even wounded, Reiko was quick; by this point, he'd already recovered and had slammed the teenager's head into the wall.

As expected, Olivia felt a rush of blood to her head that automatically turned to dizziness, and she weakly collapsed onto her forearms. A gash across her forehead now wept blood into her eyes. She couldn't ignore the unpleasant way her head swam as she waited patiently for Reiko's next attack. But to her surprise, he didn't hit her again. Instead, he wrapped her tightly in his arms, lifted her to her knees, and propped her against him from behind, holding her fast.

"Why must we fight like this, Olivia?" he whispered into her ear as he smoothed her rain-soaked hair from her face. "Your mother's not going to save you. Your father's not going to save you. _Erron_ is not going to save you. So why don't you do what you were _always_ meant to do? Why don't _you_ save yourself?"

She was too caught up in the throes of shock to reply at first, but at last her voice returned. "How?" she trembled, her body aching and tired from it all.

"Forge a path for yourself, young one," he told her, now stroking her cheek. "Be the master of your own fate. Make the choice that I've always had faith you could make."

"And what choice is that?" she asked as he now gently covered her cold, shaking hands with his warm, steady ones. His voice was alluring and soft, and she unwittingly relaxed in his arms as he cast his spell over her.

"Choose to follow _me_ , Olivia. Choose to forge an alliance between our peoples. It is the choice only an adult can make." He paused to caress her cheek once more. "I can open up all the Realms for you and let you experience wonders you've barely begun to imagine. I will teach you everything I know, even things your own father refuses to let you learn." She didn't answer him, only contemplated what a life serving him as his protege would mean for her. Sensing her conflict, he leaned her back, cradled him in his arms, and looked deeply into her eyes. "Forget the Lin Kuei, Olivia. Forget the Shirai Ryu. Forget Earthrealm and Outworld and all the battles in all the wars that have waged on for countless centuries, that _will_ wage on long after you're gone. I will teach you what _real_ power is, young one. And I'll bring you into womanhood once and for all."

"I won't betray my family," she replied, shivering, mildly embarrassed by his candor. Memories of their dalliance only days ago rushed through her brain, and with it, guilt. "I won't betray my father. He deserves at least that much."

Reiko leaned over and tenderly planted a kiss on the cut on her forehead before planting a soft one on her lips. "I forgive you for your transgressions against me, Olivia. You were merely trying to protect yourself and to survive in the harsh desert wasteland. No one can blame you for what you did. It was actually quite clever. I'm only grateful you didn't succeed." He half-smiled at that. "But can your father make that claim? Will _he_ be as understanding? Or will he merely banish you from his sight again, especially when he realizes what you and I did together?"

Once again, doubt about her father's intentions bit at her heart like a thorn. "I don't know," she whispered fearfully. Everything Raiden had told her that had built her confidence immediately flitted away like the wispiest of clouds on a windy day.

He nodded in understanding. "Everything you've ever wanted is just one step beyond what is familiar and comfortable, Olivia. Take my hand and I will help you cross that threshold."

* * *

 **Slytherin Studios,** thank you! I hope this update delivered on your expectations :)

 **PinkRedRose2,** thank you. I appreciate that, more than you know. As per my update, I hope the impending battle lives up to the build-up.

 **Esha Napoleon,** thanks!

 **ROCuevas,** I know, a lot of people undoubtedly thought I had abandoned my story. But it's good to be back and writing again. Thank you, as always, for your support! :)

 **Obelisk of Light,** I never considered the parallels to blood-bending, but I can see why you'd say that. I'm glad the final cut of that Raiden scene met your every expectation. Once again, I didn't consider the parallels him whisking away like that had to his character in _Conquest_ , but again, I can see that. It's possible that subconsciously, I remembered him from that show and incorporated that aspect. Either way, I thought it was a great way to wrap up his conversation with Olivia so that _she'd_ be the one to make the decision to join the battle. Or, at least, let her _think_ it was her idea LOL

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor,** thanks again, Doc. I appreciate all your support throughout this nightmare. You're a good friend :) As per my update, Anya _definitely_ needs a vacation on a tropical beach somewhere in the Caribbean. Don't worry; she'll swallow a big chill pill soon (pun most definitely intended LOL).

 **Reptaliator,** thank you for that. I appreciate it. To answer your question about whether or not Anya is based off me, the answer is yes and no. See, I'm in that camp of writers who believe that _every_ character I create is a part of me in some way, shape, or form. So yeah, she's a bit like me. I think the biggest thing she gets from me is her bullheaded stubbornness. But she's also inspired by other sources and things. Her abilities were inspired by Rain's, and so when I thought about her and his abilities, I thought about the water-benders from _Avatar: The Last Airbender_. So in some respects, she's a little like Katara. Her physical appearance is modeled off Elizabeth Taylor in _Cleopatra_. Her name was inspired by the character, Anya, from _Anastasia_ , especially after I did some research and found out that it means a few things relating to "grace," which really paralleled the effect I was going for with her relationship to Sub-Zero. But mostly, Anya was inspired by my mother. My mom was a nurse, very selfless, and very caring. Like Anya did for Blue, my mom would've totally risked her life to protect an animal in danger. She was a mom to kids that weren't even hers; I can't tell you how full of kids my house was growing up because she just randomly adopted all of our friends. This kind of shows in Anya's devotion to the Lin Kuei kiddies. Also, my mom marched to the beat of her own drum until the day she died - she completely owned that "I do my own thing so you can suck it" attitude. She lived life on her own terms and she'd be damned before she let you take that from her. Also, like Anya is to Sub-Zero, my mom was completely devoted to my dad. She really believed they were soulmates and the mere thought of losing him broke her heart every time. So, yeah. She's an amalgamation of several different sources.

 **Jlord37,** thank you.


	40. Scenes from the Battle

**Author's Note: I tried to make this chapter feel sort of random and all over the place to reflect how the heroes are are kind of doing their own thing. I hope it doesn't feel too disjointed!**

* * *

Steadily, Erron rushed across the rooftops towards the palace, ducking low in the shadows to avoid drawing attention to himself, which he definitely could have handled, but surely would've caused him unnecessary delay. He scurried over stone walls with tireless strength to catch up with Reiko and Sub-Zero, glancing down at the streets below to gauge his forward progress. So far, there was no sign of the two men, nor of Olivia, who wasn't always as subtle as her pa.

He couldn't quite be sure why he was so damn worried about her, but maybe Catja had been right: maybe he saw his little Daisy Mae in that rambunctious little hellcat, and something he'd long since thought died stirred inside him with a need to protect her. Whatever the reason, he just hoped the Queen was wrong about her granddaughter; he knew it was a long shot, but maybe Olivia really _had_ decided to listen to her elders this time and stay put.

 _Yeah, and pigs can fly_ , he inwardly scoffed as he sidled along the rooftops, chasing after Sub-Zero and Reiko.

* * *

As the battle raged on at Z'Unkarah's wall, and the invaders pushed their way through the rifts into the city proper, the remaining Earthrealm warriors charged through the melee to defend Kotal Kahn and his people. Smoke led them. By now, the way through was relatively clear, as most of the Tarkatans and Osh-tekks skirmished on the other side. That was the cyber-ninja's intention; after Kuai Liang teleported away, and Kenshi and Scorpion went after him, he decided he did _not_ want to risk Kailyn's life, Anya's life, or the lives of his children in this civil war. So he'd held them back while the battle between the Outworlders waged on, and only when their ranks had thinned out did he allow anyone to leave the safety of the trees. Now, unsure of what he'd find inside the walls, and specifically what enemies he'd encounter, Smoke crept through the break in the wall slowly and allowed his digital optic scanners to assess the situation.

"I'm picking up multiple heat signatures on the other side," he explained to his companions as infrared swept over his vision. Battling on either side of the wall, destroying the streets, large blobs of orange heat blared across his sight. He looked to his right and saw Kailyn clutching her staff in her fist, fiercely creeping along beside him.

"I should join my people on the wall above," she announced. "The Queen-"

"I think they can manage without you, _miláček_ , " Smoke cut her off. "I want you to stay close to me."

"I do _not_ need you to protect me," she snapped.

"What are you talking about?" he retorted. "You're going to protect _me_."

The Tetrach rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth tugged upwards in the faintest of smiles. She was usually far too serious. But he was the only one who could get her to laugh when she didn't want to. It was a point of pride for him.

As they walked, drums rolled and fires leapt up as Reiko's army overwhelmed Kotal Kahn's soldiers when the Tarkatan horde, with their arm blades out, surged forward like a cloud of locusts. As they hacked a path through the melee, the Edenians followed suit, using whatever supernatural gifts they possessed to attack. But the Osh-tekk could not be counted out just yet; though they were the smaller of the two armies, their forces were better warriors, Smoke observed. The wind blew, the rain fell, and the Edenian trumpets taunted the Emperor's forces while their arrows softly hissed through the air.

Smoke now switched to night vision - the crackling lightning did not bother his cybernetic retinas like it would an ordinary human - so he could see the scene more clearly. He started to tell his children to stay close to him while they made their way to the palace, but before he could form the words, Alex had already charged into the chaos, shooting his guns with an enraged cry. The cyber-ninja shook his head tiredly and then followed suit; though he had wanted to avoid fighting for as long as possible, clearly his son had other ideas. So Smoke attacked a random Edenian instead, bolting towards him like an oncoming train.

The middle-aged man narrowed his beady eyes and patiently waited for the cyber-ninja to reach him before he first threw a left hook and then a right. Though his movements were exceptionally fast and fluid, Smoke blocked both, countered with a right hook, and then fired a small missile into the man's middle. With a startled cry, the sheer force of it was so strong that it lifted him slightly off his feet and carried him backwards into a storefront before it exploded. Bloody chunks of meat mingled with the falling rain, bathing everyone in close proximity with gore and blood.

Suddenly, two hulking arms wrapped around his waist. He only had a split second to think on it, however, before the Tarkatan snapped him backwards and body-slammed him into the mud. Pleased with himself, the beast laughed wickedly, his chuckle a deep but rasping hiss. Then he kicked him in the face. For a moment, Smoke saw blue and white stars.

But then Kailyn charged unnoticed towards the Tarkatan, growling in determination as she ran. She leaped into the air, gliding several feet before she kicked him in the back. He stumbled forward, and she spun and leaped into the air once more, this time performing a reverse roundhouse kick to the beast's face. Finally, she swung her spear around and cracked it across his jaw before she then turned it and ran him through with the blade. Blood dribbled from the wound and bubbled from his mouth, and with a snarl, she thrust him back. He fell, dead.

Then she looked at her mate, offering him her hand. "Are you hurt, my love?" she asked.

"Only my pride, _miláček_ ," he smiled. "See? I _told_ you I need you to watch my back."

She nodded, her soggy ringlets bouncing. "Yes, I see what you mean now." She smiled.

* * *

"I _will_ take back what is mine," Mileena hissed at Kotal Kahn as she stomped towards him.

"You do not have the strength," he retorted. "You are nothing but a failed experiment."

And with that, he charged towards her to have the honor of the first strike, but just as he reached her, she whirled around in a purple flourish and head-butted him unexpectedly. Pain filled his forehead as blue-white stars danced in his vision, and he stumbled backwards clumsily. Her pale hand immediately caught his wrist-brace and yanked him forward towards a perfect punch, but the Emperor blocked her and ducked to the side before her fist connected.

Mileena was undeterred, however. She calmly jerked her hand free and punched at him again, catching Kotal directly in the eye socket, her knuckles splitting the teal-painted flesh. Warm blood trickled from the fresh gash as Mileena now shoved him against the parapet overlooking the way to the Red Desert. Her body was remarkably strong for as petite as it was. The Emperor involuntarily dropped to his knees as crushing pain ground into his spine, but he quickly countered with a firm punch to the construct's gut. Mileena groaned and stumbled back, but then retaliated by kneeing him in the chin. His head flew back with a loud crack inside his head, the sound of his jaws snapping shut. A split-second later, she drove her clenched fist into the back of his neck like an axe.

Kotal Kahn's body lurched down as more stars filled his sight, but he immediately recovered and drilled his own fist into Mileena's chin with a ferocious shout. Now it was her turn to cry out in pain and stumble backwards. Blood soaked her mask and dribbled around the sides, and quickly, she wiped away the involuntary tears welling from her eyes. The Emperor used the opportunity to jump up before he leapt onto the witch's back and wrapped his strong forearms around her throat. His opponent struggled for a moment before shoving him backwards into the parapet once more.

As if riding a spirited horse, he gripped thick handfuls of her soggy hair, used them like reins, and steered her around by tugging on her scalp. She squealed in pain as he ripped and pulled, and she jabbed at his hands with her sais. The ends pricked and poked him occasionally, and even drew blood at times with biting pain, but he refused to let her go. When Mileena was finally turned around the way he wanted her, he leapt off her back and violently shoved her head into the parapet. Ancient stone exploded as a new indentation crumbled in the pouring rain. Blood stained the mark. Mileena somehow recovered, though she was quite a bit slower to get up now, and she caught Kotal by the wrist again, this time snapping _him_ around like a rag doll and wrapping her thin arms around his neck.

"Outworld belongs to me!" she shrieked in his ear. "My father willed it so!"

She had a solid grip – one that, once again, belied her small stature – so Kotal Kahn struggled to breathe and break free. The two danced around awkwardly. The Emperor's vision gradually became gray as dizziness overwhelmed him. He gasped for air as the pressure in his eyeballs built up and threatened to explode. His legs flailed beneath him, and then he heard a heavy clank on the ground. A metallic flash caught his eye, and he immediately recognized that he'd dropped his macuahuitl. He strained to reach it.

Mileena understood what he was doing and promptly kicked it out of reach. The movement, however, gave Kotal Kahn just enough freedom to twist from her powerful hold. Once more, he aimed a punch at her stomach, but she stepped to the side and drove her elbow into his throat. The Emperor staggered, choked and barked like a seal, and rubbed his throat. A second later, Mileena slashed at him with her sais, ripping a line through his cheek.

The Emperor backed away, ducking several more attempts against him until he finally kicked Mileena in the stomach with all his strength. When she crashed into the parapet, though, she countered with a fierce kick of her own that forced Kotal to stumble sideways. Then she flung a sai at him. This time, he caught the attack with one of his hard leather gauntlets and deflected it easily. Mileena tried again and with the same result. Before she could try anything else, he threw his fist into her cheek. Something behind her mask cracked then, and she gurgled through blood.

The force of the blow sent the construct to the ground, but somehow, she responded with a swift kick to Kotal Kahn's shin. The other's leg armor absorbed most of the energy from the attack, but he still felt her hard boot. Blazing pain roared through his leg. Mileena flipped to her feet while the Emperor staggered, and then she tried to stab him with one of her recovered sais while his back was turned. Kotal Kahn heard the attack before he saw it, though, and gracefully ducked away as he willed the power of the sun to flow through him.

He wasted no time wrapping his arms around Mileena, holding her tightly in a bear hug. "Up the stair path," Kotal began, his voice now loud and booming, "the fire's edge. I pray the sky to scorch the land."

As the Emperor murmured his spell, the geometric tattoos on his body began to glow gold as his eyes shimmered red, and a brilliant beam of sunlight broke through the stormy sky, raced down, and enveloped Mileena in its glow. She wailed as it burned her skin. Several seconds passed before it finally released its grip on her and allowed her to collapse to the cold, wet stone.

She laid on the ground, whimpering and writhing on her stomach while her skin smoldered and steamed when the rain put out the embers. Kotal towered over her in smug satisfaction; this impudent child had learned a lesson she'd never forget.

"Mileena, adopted daughter of Shao Kahn, I hereby declare you guilty of high treason and sedition," he announced. "The punishment is death."

"I...I _will_ decorate...my throne...with your skull," she panted, every word labored and pained, but defiant just the same.

"It is time to let go of your delusions," he retorted. "When this battle is done and we have driven out your army, you will be executed in the sight of the people you betrayed."

"You will live to regret your decision," she spat.

"My only regret is that I did not destroy you sooner," he replied.

* * *

Alex stormed towards the palace, barely paying attention to the Tarkatans and Edenians he shot until a green-clad woman hurled an odd-looking boomerang at his arms and knocked his .45s from his hands. Undeterred, the Lin Kuei snap-kicked her in the belly when she'd stomped close enough to him, but the other countered with a downward double punch which struck his abdomen. Alex grunted loudly and in pain as he stumbled backwards, but the Edenian relentlessly stretched out her arm towards Elite, seductively twisted her fingers through the air, and a dark green ether suddenly slithered around her victim's paralyzed body. Then she jerked her arm to the side, sending him flying through a support beam. She started to stamp towards him, but a new voice called out to her.

"Enough!" the female yelled at her. The Edenian woman looked, and Morgan stood close by, her lavender eyes hard, her face stern. "I am Morgan, the daughter of the Clan Mac an t-Sealgair, of the Tetrach Kailyn, of Lord Fujin, the friend of the Hydromancers, and of Tomas Vrbada, an Earthrealm Champion. And no onehurts _my_ brother!"

Morgan then attacked her with a high roundhouse kick that she easily blocked before she threw a right hook towards her face. The Hydromancer quickly ducked and then lobbed her spear at the woman before she could react. It plunged through her middle, quivering. The Edenians eyes bulged in surprise and pain. She struggled to cry out, but only a wet burbling escaped her throat. Morgan yanked her spear out, and she fell into a heap on the ground.

The Hydromancer breathed deeply to calm the flapping butterflies in her stomach until, without warning, a Tarkatan stabbed her with his razor-sharp, retractable arm bone. Like a knife cutting through soft butter, it plunged effortlessly through her back, emerging through her well-muscled abdomen. Morgan choked on her own tongue as she frantically gulped down air to fan the inferno now raging inside her belly.

"I've never tasted Hydromancer before," he growled hungrily in her ear, and she whimpered and groaned in pain.

But Alex was already there, and he side-kicked him in the knee before he gracefully whirled around and clubbed the beast with the butt of his rifle. Immediately, the Tarkatan retracted his arm blade from Morgan's belly and stumbled to the side, slightly dazed. But then he turned his attention to the Lin Kuei warrior gazing at him angrily. Alex started to squeeze his trigger, but before he could, the beast snap-kicked him in the groin before his arm blades shot out and sliced off half the barrel. He drew back his arm as if to backhand the Elite with the bony blade, but Alex rolled beneath it and grabbed one of his .45s from the ground. With quick reflexes, he aimed and fired. His shot was true. The bullet plunged through his eye and exploded from the back, most of his skull gone.

"Morgan!" Alex now yelped as he scrambled on all fours towards his sister, who was lying in a bloody heap on the ground. "Morgan!"

Just as he reached her, another Tarkatan leaped onto his back.

* * *

While Kenshi crouched on the ground, bleeding and in pain from the lash Takeda gave him, Scorpion immediately tried to side-kick his student in the side of his knee to hobble him. But by the time his foot got to the right spot, Takeda had already stepped aside without a sound. He moved so blindingly fast that his Grandmaster had no idea what had happened until he hoisted him over his head in a graceful arch and then slammed his body into Kenshi's. Even then, it seemed unlikely that he knew; both he and the swordsman groaned in dazed pain while Takeda furiously cracked his razor whips around, the pouring rain extinguishing the sparks immediately. He patiently waited for more.

He didn't have to wait long. For an older warrior, Scorpion was still remarkably fast, and he recovered quickly from the unexpected blow. If Takeda had been capable of emotions right now, it would've been _his_ turn to feel surprise; his Grandmaster had already hurled his kunai spear towards him with such a look of derision plastered on his face that his eyes seemed to burn from his skull like the wraith's from yesteryear. But the fire glowing in his intense amber eyes didn't deter Takeda, nor did it stop him from stepping to the side and plucking it from its course, whirling around in a tight circle, and throwing it back at him again. As if making a deadly statement, it plunged into the cobblestone road between his feet.

Scorpion looked at it in surprise - had this been a training exercise, he _might_ have admitted he was impressed with his pupil - but the teenager was relentless and attacked once again, giving him no time to ponder such things. Takeda scrambled onto the bridge's railing and launched off it into a spinning back kick that arched through the air towards his Grandmaster's head. Scorpion, however, anticipated the attack this time, and flipped into a backwards handspring just before the boy's foot sailed harmlessly over him.

And then, without warning, a large cloud of invisible energy struck Takeda in the back and sent him sprawling onto the cobblestone with a buzzing yowl. This hardly slowed him down. He flopped onto his back as he gracefully cracked his razor whips once again, but they missed his father and his mentor, and instead ripped a chunk of earth from the ground nearby. Rock and dust sprayed in all directions.

Kenshi reached out with his telekinetic powers yet again, trying to snatch his son in an invisible net, but the boy was not making it easy. Clutched in either hand, his long weapons of platinum and iron hissed and snapped at the swordsman like twin cobras, breaking his concentration. Fearsome energy ran wild, crackling and spitting, ripping chunks of stone from the ground, narrowly missing his opponents. Fragments of that flotsam flew angrily through the air, a few of the rocks catching Kenshi and Scorpion like porcupine quills. Both men grimaced in pain, but the sound of thunder shaking the city drowned out their cries.

"Takeda...my son...can we at least discuss this civilly?" Kenshi drily remarked as he and his old friend dodged the flailing weapons, though he didn't really expect his son to be agreeable. In response, Takeda snapped his whips again.

And then using his hellish powers once more, Scorpion melted into the bridge, disappearing through a vortex twisting with flames. At the speed of thought, he reappeared behind Takeda a second later and unleashed his kunai once again. This time, it hit the teenager in the shoulder, prompting him to cry out as his teacher violently yanked him to him in an effort to disarm him. Fortunately for him, that's _all_ that Scorpion wanted to do.

But Takeda, who'd quickly yanked himself free of the kunai, whirled around and snapped the whips at him in retaliation, and very nearly succeeded in taking his Grandmaster's head off. But Scorpion anticipated this and dodged. The whips lodged themselves into the nearby railing, blowing splinters into a cloud of debris that was quickly washed away by the rain. And then his teacher was upon him, attacking with his katanas, bringing them down onto the whips with a fearsome guttural war cry. He chopped through the length of them like butter.

By the time Scorpion had turned to face him, Takeda was already running up his chest like a wall. When the boy's feet reached his shoulders, perhaps a split second later, he wrapped his legs tightly around his neck and then threw himself backwards. Immediately, he yanked Hanzo with him, and he flew forward, rolling through the air like a baseball. But he continued with the motion, purposefully now, so when he hit the ground he rolled right onto his feet. At the same time, however, Takeda was already charging towards him.

But now it was Kenshi's turn to intervene. As he stepped directly between the boy and the Grandmaster, he reached out with his powers and pushed him, but this time he flipped him hard onto his back. Takeda coughed and writhed in pain on the watery cobblestone and started to resist once more, but the swordsman immediately slammed his foot into the middle of his chest, pinning his son in place. He pointed Sento at the boy's nose. With a determined grunt, Takeda squirmed to break free.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Kenshi gently told him. "You're still my son, Takeda, but I will _not_ let you go. So please, stop fighting me."

Hanzo now went to work tying up the boy, who did not stop fighting to get loose for a second. His behavior was decidedly robotic, his father decided. He did not fight out of frustration or anger, or even fear. No, it was as if it was simply in his programming to resist.

"Why is he behaving like this?" Hanzo now asked. "It's as if he doesn't know either of us."

 _Kamidogu_ , Sento cryptically whispered through his brain.

Kenshi inhaled deeply and then straddled his son's chest, pinning him in place long enough for him to work. There was a great swell of emotion in his heart as he delicately felt Takeda's face, unable to _see_ the contours, the gentle dips and swells, but seeing them all the same. This boy had changed much since they'd last been together. He was no longer the scrawny runt of yesterday; Takeda now possessed the body of a man, both strong and broad. His face, though...Kenshi detected Suchin's contours - those were feelings seared into his brain forever, and he recognized them at once - but there was a trace of his own face there too, particularly in the shape of his forehead and lips.

 _Kamidogu_.

But it was Suchin he focused on now, and as he tried to make sense of Takeda's face, he wrenched his damp eyes shut behind the blindfold. What would she say if she could see the two of them now, fighting each other like the bitterest of enemies? He sensed his son's raging fury buried deep inside his heart, but it was subdued right now, quiet, much like a sleeping dragon. Whatever spell had aligned the boy against Kenshi and Hanzo could not erase it, merely neutralize it. Perhaps, he sadly thought, maybe this violent behavior was more Takeda than he wanted to believe, and less from the influence of an external force.

 _Kamidogu._

Kenshi swallowed hard and looked inside his son's mind, searching. The information he desired was right at the forefront of Takeda's mind, there for the taking. Like a video tape rewinding, the swordsman saw the events of the last few days, black and plagued by nightmares of monsters like Noob Saibot, and sandworms, and dying of infection in the heat of the desert while Olivia fought to save him, and Reiko throwing a knife at him. It penetrated his stomach, ripping a terrific hole through Takeda's midsection. And yet, somehow, he hadn't died. It somehow sustained him, somehow fed him power, somehow healed him.

 _Kamidogu_.

But it couldn't be that, could it? The Kamidogu were spirited away after the Dragon King fell, locked away by Raiden in the Sky Temple along with Shinnok's amulet. They weren't even knives, Kenshi reflected. They were more like ancient dishes, saucers the size of a softball. But, he remembered, they had immense power. It wouldn't be entirely unreasonable to say they could've been fashioned into something new after the war with Onaga.

"I think he's been corrupted by a Kamidogu," Kenshi finally told Hanzo. "It's what my ancestors say."

"Then how can we break the spell over him?" the Grandmaster wanted to know.

The swordsman wrenched his eyes shut, searching for answers but coming up with nothing. "I'm not sure that we can," he finally replied.

* * *

In the midst of her own battle, Anya faced off with a group of Edenians. One of the rebels, armed with a spear, charged towards her to run her through, but she patiently waited until the last possible second to side-step from the man's attack. As soon as he stamped by, she drove her fist into his jaw so hard that the momentum carried him into the midst of the nearby Osh-tekk, who went to work hacking him into bits with their macuahuitls.

Then another Edenian, also armed with a spear, charged towards Anya with his weapon lowered at her middle. Impulsively, she darted towards him and leapt onto the haft, dashing across it quickly like a tightrope walker. When she reached the end, she did a handspring off his shoulders, caught his plate armor as she moved, and yanked him to the ground.

Anya didn't wait for the dazed man to recover. She was already on a collision course with a Tarkatan. Just before she reached him, she jumped into the air and side-kicked him with both feet. Her blow landed a direct hit to his toothy maw, and while he stumbled and collapsed, she fell onto both hands and sprang backwards, landing upright. They met in the middle and then traded punches until at last, the Tarkatan blocked the Hydromancer's right punch, slashed at her with his armblade, and knocked her backwards when he cut a shallow line through her shirt.

Anya's cry got Kailyn's attention, and the moment she glanced in her sister's direction was the moment an Edenian jumped into the air and propelled himself into the Tetrach's back, knocking her several feet forward and eventually to the ground. Then he leaped onto her like a kid on a trampoline. Kailyn's breath fled her as she struggled not to vomit. She cried out in pain, so immense was the crackling that surged through her spine, and she scarcely noticed when the Edenian hopped off and poised to decapitate her with a sword.

And then, in the corner of her eye, she saw a strange, shimmering distortion dash towards them. The Edenian didn't recognize the threat because he, who did not know of Smoke's abilities, couldn't even see him. But Kailyn did, and before she could cry out for her mate's help, he had grabbed the Edenian by the straps of his armor and threw him to the side. The man flew into a nearby support beam as one of his comrades dashed towards the newly materialized cyber-ninja with his sword poised to strike. With a slightly cocky laugh, Smoke did the same thing to it. He crashed into a wall and slumped to the ground.

"It would seem, my love," Kailyn grunted as her mate then lifted her to her feet, "that I _did_ need you to protect me."

He kissed her muddy cheek. "Perhaps, _miláček_ , we need to protect each other," he said.

She nodded, but then she remembered her sister. "Annalise!" she cried, looking for the Healer.

By now, the Tarkatan ran at Anya, hacking with his right blade and then his left. She blocked both, but the beast jumped into a reverse cartwheel kick that caught her in the face, and she staggered to the side, blood spilling from the inside of her mouth. The Tarkatan then flipped high through the air and landed before her, splashing her with muddy water, and he wasted no time delivering a front snap-kick at her groin. The Hydromancer blocked the shot before his opponent aimed his right blade and then his left blade at her head. She deflected those attacks as well, finally answering with a front snap-kick of her own to the Tarkatan's chest. He staggered backwards while other Tarkatans rushed to his aid.

Yet another of the beasts attacked Anya with his armblades leading, but she side-stepped out of the way of the thrust and watched them start to glide by harmlessly. She grabbed a muscular forearm and twirled the Tarkatan's entire body around. When he'd come full circle, she arched the blow downward so that his blades dug into another Tarkatan's back, slicing its spine completely in half. Then Anya pushed them both into the mud away from her just as Kailyn jumped into the fight to assist her, and drove her spear into the stuck one's back, killing him.

More of Reiko's army attacked them, and for a moment, the three Earthrealm Champions - Smoke, Kailyn, and Anya - traded blows with them in a flurry of fists and feet. Soon, though, Smoke managed to leap into the air and jump kick an Edenian in the face, and when he landed, he stepped into a sidekick that knocked a second enemy back. But one of the Tarkatans, not to be outdone, stabbed him, laughing wickedly when his armblade plunged into his armpit. He yanked the cyber-ninja to him and then punched him to the ground, breaking him free of his weapon.

While Smoke was on the ground, groaning as he applied pressure to the gaping wound, feeling the blood gushing through his fingers and spilling down his shirt, the Tarkatan leaped into the air to do a spinning reverse roundhouse kick before Anya blasted him with a stream of water conjured in her palms. It was nowhere near as strong as anything Kailyn or Morgan could produce, but it did the job. As she wanted, it drove the beast back.

But then it was _his_ turn to attack. He blasted her with a ball of energy that ran the length of his armblade before it soared into her chest. She flew into a wall and crumpled like a doll. But then, Kailyn cracked her spear across his skull, and as he spun around helplessly, she fan-kicked him and then swept him to the ground. Then she stomped him directly in the chest plate armor. At that moment, Smoke blasted an Edenian creeping up behind her to attack her with a missile from the bay built into his left, cybernetic palm. Once again, the enemy exploded into bits.

"Anya!" he suddenly heard his son's voice urgently yell. "Aunt Anya!"

Smoke and Kailyn both looked around and suddenly caught sight of Alex rushing towards them, carrying a limp Morgan in his arms.

* * *

Glaring at the smug witch, Tanya, Fujin balled up his fist and punched her squarely in the jaw; as the Pyromancer stumbled against a tavern wall, glorious satisfaction surged through the Wind God. Pleased, perhaps even giddy, he wolfishly bared his teeth, his fangs featuring more prominently than normal. She had almost killed Morgan - _killed_ her - but she acted like she'd merely swatted a fly. Perhaps if she'd shown even just a tiny bit of remorse for her deeds, Fujin could forgive her. But her nonchalant smirk set his heart into an even bigger inferno of rage.

Tanya abruptly started laughing as she straightened, her voice cold and cruel. She glared at him before she spat out gobs of blood. "Tell me, Lord Fujin," she jeered, "if you're so concerned about your precious little girl, then why ever would you let her accompany you to Outworld on such a dangerous mission?" She chuffed in amusement. "Surely, you had to have guessed she'd have a target painted on her back, especially since she's a traitor to her fellow Edenians. Treachery is a common trait amongst Hydromancers, I've noticed. Of course, I'm basing my judgment on Rain's actions."

At the mention of the coward who nearly brought the Hydromancers to extinction, Fujin roared and started to attack again, but this time Tanya was faster, and she quickly cartwheel-kicked him in the face, knocking him to the ground at the feet of the warring Osh-tekks and Tarkatans. Mild pain flooded the Wind God's cheek as he landed with a thud in a puddle of muddy rainwater, but before Tanya could stomp on him, he spun like a propeller with his legs, sweeping her legs from beneath her.

Before she even landed, Fujin had already kipped up and blasted a gust of air from his palm at her. He missed, though, when she quickly scurried out of the way, and the wall of the brothel behind her bent in on itself as if it had been punched. His failure did not discourage him, though, and while Tanya scrambled away, he expelled all the air from his lungs at her. At his call, it exploded from him and struck the Pyromancer, lifting her with a startled shriek and carrying her into a nearby market stall, chucking her like an egg into a fruit booth, smashing it to splinters.

She was slow to rise and somewhat dazed, but Tanya was not yet defeated. As Fujin stomped towards her for a repeat, she grunted in pain as she chopped a naginata she'd grabbed into his chest. Fujin, not expecting such retaliation, tried to dance from its path, but the jagged edge lodged itself in his right pectoral muscle as a gush of his immortal ichor spilled from the wound. He staggered, surprised; it felt like he'd been hit with a sledgehammer, and he stumbled to the side with a loud, pained groan.

Fujin cringed and grimaced as he quickly ripped the blade from his chest, and more ichor dribbled from the wound. But Tanya gave him no time to recover. The god had barely just pried out the weapon and thrown it to the side before the Pyromancer charged towards him and threw an enraged punch at his face. The Wind God, his reflexes dulled from the pain, missed the block and was drilled directly in his left jaw. Still, he only staggered a little as he ignored the crack of lightning surging through his face, and he immediately countered with a furious punch of his own that the other _did_ block. Undeterred, he punched again, to the same end, and in this fashion the two began to trade blows for several long seconds.

And then something welled up inside of him, some boiling hatred that _seldom_ went expressed except in tiny, fleeting thoughts better left suppressed. It raced from his darkest depths and burst through the surface, spreading over him, reminding him of the way Tonya had nearly killed his beloved daughter, and how she'd killed Blue, and aided Mileena, and was nothing more than a faithless monster since long before the rebellion began, and much, much more than he could focus on in his battle. Every terrible memory of the Pyromancer washed over him in an instant, all of her crimes and betrayals, and for a fraction of a second, the wind began to whip and twist around him.

Tanya, bewildered and stunned, now backed away hesitantly as the smirk vanished from her face. But just because she looked afraid didn't mean that she was helpless. She only hesitated for a moment before she overcame her surprise and threw a fist at him. Her punch found the wound in Fujin's chest, and hit him so hard that she knocked him to the ground. The Wind God groaned as the inferno, which had died to a dull flame, burned through his body in fury once again. He was slow to rise, but his determination yanked him to his feet all the same. His rage had not abated, and he instantly charged towards Tanya, now crane-punching her in the throat.

Now it was her turn to cry out, but the scream came out as a gurgle. The Wind God watched the Edenian clutch her throat to suck air down her crushed trachea as she collapsed onto her knees, and then in a last-ditch effort to hurt Fujin, threw a pulsating ball of fire at him. Once more, the might of the wind roared to life within him, and twisting, cyclonic arms raced around his body. Instinctively, he caught the ball in the whipping bands and angrily hurled it back at her with a powerful grunt. It hit Tanya in the chest and the subsequent explosion tossed her onto her back; she screamed as fire smoldered through her clothes and she beat at her breast to put it out. She then looked at him in surprise and something like wonder as Fujin stood over her triumphantly.

He slowly lifted his extended arms over his head, and he thought of his brother, the one who'd taught him how to use St. Elmo's fire many years ago. It was the only lightning trick he even knew, but it was an appropriate time to use it. Tanya deserved that cruel punishment. As his hands moved upward, glowing balls of purplish electricity began to dance up the decorative metal ribbons wrapped around the nearby support pillars, crackling and strobing as if they were alive. They worked their way upward until finally, plasma blasts whipped from the tarnished silver and arched into crackling tendrils that struck the Pyromancer where she laid. She screamed a startled yelp when it hit her and chucked her several yards away.

Though she moaned in agony, Tanya still resisted him, however. She twitched uncontrollably as the lightning chittered through her blood, but somehow she threw both of her hands at Fujin, and twin jets of fire plowed into him, knocking him onto his rear end. The Wind God hadn't even thudded to a stop by the time Tanya had pulled herself onto all fours and focused her powers into roaring auras around her clenched fists. Blue flames and cinders formed from the pyroclastic cloud, and then she thrust her palm towards the god, shooting everything she had at him with the same velocity and power as a machine gun. Fujin tried to deflect the projectiles with a shield of wind, but they were just too fast. They pelted him, actually stinging as they exploded into flames on his skin, and knocked him over.

Darkness began to gather more quickly now, the growing storm overhead stealing the light away, yanking on it just as easily as it lassoed the wind into its updrafts. Lightning tore violently across the blackness of the sky, flashing rapidly in every direction, forking, doubling, and doing it over again until the sky itself burned. The bluish-purple bolts vibrated and danced, and with gathering speed were pulled to the ground.

"You are a plague upon the Realms," he hissed as they both climbed to their feet, "one that I mean to eradicate this very instant."

"You are not man enough," she rasped, chuckling to herself. "You are just a pathetic, minor god."

His hatred for her snapped inside just then, a great, overwhelming crack that bled horrid memories into his heart. There was a small part of him that resisted it, that _knew_ how dangerous it was to set free. The wind, at its mightiest, was deadly and terrifying to behold. But the rage swallowed him whole, and at that moment, he unleashed its fury without mercy. With glowing white eyes, he lifted his head and raised his body from the ground, his arms extended to either side as rising columns of dust pushed him higher into the air. He stared dispassionately at Tanya, drowning in pure, raw anger.

Around Fujin, the rain poured down in sheets and the wind began to howl. It was a horrid sound when the two opposing air currents collided, like a lion roaring in time to the shrieking of steel so loud, the ground and surrounding buildings began to tremble with dread. The winds coiled around Fujin at his command, angrily clashing as the growing tornado swept debris into the sky, lifting entire buildings off their foundations with deafening wails. Nearby, many warriors on both sides toppled like toys, and the rebels and Osh-tekk alike shrieked and fled to escape the Wind God's growing wrath.

The raging winds chewed up stone and wood from the nearby structures, and then it spit them out violently like a porcupine shooting its quills at an enemy. Planks impaled anyone stupid enough to remain nearby. Tanya was no fool, though. She dove over a broken wall into the basement of one of these buildings, and she huddled inside, clinging to an ancient root for dear life. In desperation, she flung more fireballs at him, but the wind furiously threw them back, causing them to explode like so many bombs around her. With a scream, she let go of her root and toppled to the ground.

Fujin let the wind dissipate as hopped onto the foundation's edge. He expected to see Tanya's charred body, but to his surprise, there was nothing but a thick, hazy cloud of smoke. The Wind God raised an eyebrow. Where was she?

"Tanya?" he called uneasily.

Suddenly, she dropped onto him from overhead in a sparkling gold light, emerging from a golden portal that twisted its way through worlds. With her hands clasped firmly together, she drove them into the top of his head, stunning him. As he staggered to the side, she threw her hands towards him again, and more fire and volcanic detritus followed. But this time, Fujin did not deflect the attack in time. A brilliant explosion on his back brought him to his knees like a meteor. Embers rained from his body in red-orange embers, searing him like a piece of meat, burning his clothes and flaying his flesh from his body until the rain extinguished them and steam wafted from his writhing figure. As he screamed in pain, Tanya threw both of her tonfas at him, and sneered in satisfaction when they pierced him through the hands and pinned him to the ground.

"Oh, my dear Fujin," she said, her voice lilting in derision. "Your anger makes you predictable. Perhaps one day, you'll learn to control it and not let it control you." She started to walk away as he wailed and fought to get free, but some need to gloat, to rub his face in her victory, stopped her. She turned once again. "Tell your daughter to watch herself," she smirked. And with that, Tanya trotted away, leaving Fujin to squirm in pain on the ground.

* * *

Anya dizzily pushed herself on all fours beside the wall, vaguely brushing her torn shirt and sliced belly, which was still slick from blood and stinging. But it was only a flesh wound, and she'd probably heal without a scar. But her head ached from crashing into the wall, and she was certain she had a concussion. No matter. She had to get through this crowd of warriors to find Olivia, who she assumed was locked in the palace somewhere, knowing Erron. But she stopped in her tracks when she heard Alex calling her name in a panic.

"Alex?" she called a moment before she saw her nephew running towards her with Morgan draped over his arms. "Oh, my God," she muttered.

Immediately, Anya pushed through her companions and rushed towards them to help her niece. Kailyn and Smoke flanked her, and together, the bolted towards the Elites. Morgan was unconscious from blood loss, her head and body lax. A gaping hole bored all the way through her stomach.

"By the Elder Gods! Morgan!" Kailyn cried in a panic as Alex knelt onto the ground with her. "Morgan?" In spite of herself, the Tetrach, who was usually so stoic and stern, began to cry.

"Morgan, can you hear me?" Anya asked, quickly taking her cold wrist in her fingers and checking her pulse. Her heart rate was weak, which didn't surprise her, and her breathing was labored and rasping, but at least she was still alive.

"Her liver, gallbladder, and pancreas has been perforated," Tomas anxiously said as he scanned his step-daughter's body with his cybernetic gauntlet. "You can help her, right?"

Anya didn't answer. Beneath her fingertips, she sensed the agony in Morgan's body, but more importantly, the spark of light rapidly fading. "Don't you even think about dying on me, young lady," she said, even though the Elite heard nothing. "I've got you. Come back to us."

At that, she gripped the young Hydromancer's hand tightly, resting her other hand flat across the gaping wound, willing every shred of power she had into her to ease her pain and heal the damage. It was a tricky task, magically Healing the Elite. The extent of the damage was great. Kailyn held her other hand while she worked, and their combined efforts seemed to help; Morgan's body eventually began to relax while her pulse and her respiration improved.

Now Anya's training and instincts commanded her to grip Morgan's cheeks with her palms and concentrate. She obeyed them, now relieved when she felt her spirit connect with Morgan's and the Elite truly began to heal. But as they always did when the wounds closed, her niece's memories became her own, and the nurse saw them as clearly in her mind as she would her reflection in a mirror. Thoughts, secrets, feelings flowed into her like water channeled from a lake. And she felt fear - not of death, but that she had disappointed her mother for falling in battle. Soon, though, as the rain fell on all five of them, Morgan's eyes weakly fluttered open.

"Oh, thank the Elder Gods!" Kailyn breathed in relief as she scooped her oldest daughter into her arms and cradled her tightly, now sobbing. As Anya scooted back on her knees through the mud to give them space, Tomas knelt beside his step-daughter and kissed her hand repeatedly while Alex looked on.

But the Healer felt her head swim, and panting, she collapsed backwards against a porch's support beam. She was weak now, drained. Healing someone with this level of damage always took everything she had.

"Sister, are you well?" Kailyn now asked, looking at her in worry.

Anya nodded tiredly. "Let's just hope that no one else needs me to Heal them any time soon," she said.

* * *

Havik, who was now standing after squirming free of the lightning lasso that bound him, wickedly laughed at Raiden. "You cannot interfere, Thunder _God_ ," he sneered. "This is a mortal matter, and an Outworld matter at that. You have no dominion here."

"On the contrary," Raiden replied, "you and Reiko committed an act of war against Earthrealm when you attacked it to kidnap my Champions' children. Therefore, this _is_ a matter that concerns me."

He took a bit of smug, self-satisfaction at calling Havik's bluff, and perhaps enjoyed that fleeting, almost imperceptible expression of fear that crossed his face a little too much.

But the Cleric's hesitation was short lived. Havik abruptly conjured a ball of flames from nothingness, throwing it at the Thunder God without warning. Raiden waited until it almost hit him before he teleported in a cloud of crackling static electricity, appeared behind him, and jumped to kick him in his back. Then he twisted off the Cleric's shoulders and forced him to stagger forward. When the god landed on his feet, he promptly struck him with lightning bolts that sprang from either palm. Brilliant showers of blue-white sparks rained on the rain-soaked intersection as Havik flew backwards into a support pillar holding up the porch of a nearby building.

The Thunder God barely noticed the swarm of Osh-tekk, Edenians, and Tarkatans as they streamed around him; it was obvious to anyone truly paying attention that the enemy had pushed Kotal's army further in, and only a thin line of warriors stopped them from washing over the city like a dark plague. He felt gravely concerned for his Earthrealm Champions, and anxious that anyone would dare search out his father's evil amulet. It was as if his worst fears had been realized; the powerful object could only ever prove to be a temptation for the truly wicked villains of the Realms. It really came as no surprise that someone - and that someone being Reiko - finally figured out how to get it. How, then, to ensure he didn't succeed?

Raiden couldn't ponder the answer for long. Havik had slowly risen to his feet, grinning a toothy grin, and then calmly snapped his broken neck back into place with a sickening crunch. He then charged towards him and threw a right hook, but the Thunder God easily blocked and countered with a hard right that spun the Cleric around in a circle. Rather than fight the momentum, however, he followed it and used it to jump into the air and do a roundhouse kick to his opponent's shoulder. Raiden staggered as Havik landed on the ground and stepped directly into a spinning back kick that knocked his enemy backwards even further. The Thunder God recovered quickly, though, and stared down the Cleric as they charged towards one another, then traded punches for several long seconds. Raiden soon tired of this, though, and finally just blasted the Cleric with a thick bolt of branched lightning. Once more, Havik flew through a pillar.

But not to be outdone, Havik now conjured two fireballs in each hand and flung them at him. As they hurled towards him, they danced together, eventually fusing into a fiery ring that hit him directly in the chest. Now it was _his_ turn to fly backwards. When he slid to a stop in a large mud puddle, he quickly did a kip-up while the Cleric now rushed and jumped into a snap kick that hit the Thunder God's chest, but did not accomplish anything. With a ferocious shout, Raiden promptly threw a left hook at him, who blocked and threw a left punch of his own. The god just as easily caught his fist and then led Havik over his shoulder, throwing him to the side like a doll.

But the Cleric took hardly any time recovering from being thrown, and he threw both a right hook and a left hook at his opponent, both of which the other blocked. With an evil, impatient sneer, Havik tried once more with the right hook, this time succeeding and landing the shot. Mild pain filled the Thunder God's cheek, but he scarcely noticed it because his opponent now jumped and kneed him in the chin before he powerfully extended his leg and kicked him in the chest. Raiden sailed into the nearest wall with a startled cry.

Now Havik charged towards him from either direction, so he blasted him with a blue-white lightning bolt that bathed the entire intersection in eerie light. The Cleric screamed in pain. Before he could recover, Raiden summoned every crackle of static, no matter how small, to him. His body rapidly glowed with an electric aura made completely of lightning, and forked bolts wreathed his all-white eyes. Thunder boomed throughout the street, adding its music to the percussive crescendos blasting above them, paying its respect to his power. Raiden pulled his hands towards each other, feeling the bizarre, inevitable push of their reversed polarity, circling them around each other like he played with a large ball. And then a ball _did_ form, one that glowed as brilliantly as his eyes, and it showered the ground with sparks as it grew bigger between his palms. Finally, when it was roughly the size of a beach ball, it exploded. Immediately, arcs of electricity burst from him.

Havik was stunned, but somehow had the presence of mind to call on a higher power. He glanced weakly towards the Thunder God, and reached for him as he chanted bizarre words that he couldn't quite hear. He uneasily looked around as a stream of ethereal red magic emerged from nothingness and plunged into the Cleric's body, enveloping him with some kind of power he didn't quite recognize. To his surprise, Havik soon staggered to his feet, rejuvenated.

"This has been quite amusing, Thunder God," he chuckled. "But you are not my true mission."

Raiden scowled at him and started to aim lightning at him again, but as the crackling bolts left his palms, Havik vanished in a cloud of red smoke.

* * *

 **Author's Note: I know you're all anxious to see what happens to Olivia, but I wanted to dedicate my full attention to her battle, so that's why you didn't see her in this update. I didn't want to say this above because I didn't want to spoil the chapter for you. I'm ready to take bets on which of our heroes you think is gonna bite the dust ;)**

 **Esha Napoleon, thanks as always!**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, no, it sure isn't. Well, for her or for someone else, that is...**

 **ROCuevas, thanks and thanks!**

 **DarkAssassin15, if sending you to bed angry was an Olympic sport, I'd have a shit-ton of gold medals ;)**

 **Obelisk of Light, I hope I've overturned all your assumptions on their head. I live to defy expectations LOL**

 **Slytherin Studios, thank you very much :)**

 **en-lumine, don't apologize, I know you're very busy adulting like I am :) But thanks. I tried to make Reiko slimy in a way that was different from Rain. I think I'm succeeding, judging by people's general reactions to him. And yeah, poor Takeda. What will happen to him since his Dad can't break him free of the Blood Magik?**

 **Darkis Shadow, like I told you in that PM, thank you so very much for your kind review. It always makes my day when I get such thoughtful, well-written critiques. I'm so glad you somehow found your way to my story, and better yet, that you're enjoying it so much! Unfortunately, I couldn't show Tanya getting her comeuppance today, much as I wished I could. Somebody has to free Mileena from prison, yes? ;) And as much as you are looking forward to seeing Sub-Zero kick ass and reunite with her, I'm looking forward to writing that too! Thank you again!**


	41. A Path Chosen

Rain streamed around Olivia's head in rivulets as Reiko curled his arm around her, holding her close. The two stared into each other's eyes for the longest moment, neither of them speaking a single word. She couldn't quite still her fearful trembling, which almost seemed to amuse him. The corners of his mouth turned upward in the faintest of smirks. She contemplated his offer to make him his apprentice. She knew - had already _decided_ \- that she could no longer return to the Temple after all she'd done to shame her family and the Clan. That left her future uncertain. Joining him, she mused, would be an easy solution. Still, something in her gut gnawed at her.

"But what happens if you succeed?" she finally muttered. "What will happen to Earthrealm? To Outworld? To all of the Realms?"

Reiko smiled. "Tender, sweet Olivia. So concerned with the fate of people you don't even know."

"I don't have to know them to know that killing everyone is wrong."

"It is a truism to say that in order to create, there must first be destruction," he replied. "To borrow an Earthrealm colloquialism: you can't make an omelet unless you crack a few eggs."

"But my family-"

"I can spare them if you wish," he offered. "I can spare everyone in the Lin Kuei. They can serve as my loyal, elite Enforcers."

"My father will never go along with that," she protested, her stomach twisting in knots. "He's sworn to protect Earthrealm."

"Then he will die fulfilling his vow," Reiko coldly responded. It prompted fresh tears to well up in Olivia's eyes, and now an irritated shadow crossed his face. "What has your father ever done for you, Child?" he hissed. "Tell me."

Olivia thought long and hard about it. Memories of him throughout her life flashed through her head in a single instant - there he was, teaching her how to walk, to read, to fight. There he was playing with her, and telling her stories, and giving her presents just because. There had been fights, yes, and plenty of tears. But she realized, in that moment, that there were far more good memories of her father than bad. She couldn't stand the thought of Reiko killing him. Her father. Her friend. Her world. And the feeling that overwhelmed her in that moment was nothing truly noble – not in her mind, at any rate. Rather, it was a terrible regret that she couldn't have been a better daughter to him all along.

"He's done everything," she whimpered. "He's my dad."

Reiko started to scoff at that. "I-" he began, but was immediately cut off.

"Olivia!" a deep, familiar voice cried, and when both she and the General looked up, there was Sub-Zero stomping towards them with his fist tightly clenched around a kori sword.

"Dad!" she squealed, almost in disbelief. Tears immediately flooded from her eyes, blending well into the rain streaming down her cheeks. She threw her arms towards him like an infant, hoping he'd scoop her up and hold her tight, praying he was real. If he was merely an optical illusion, a by-product of stress and exhaustion, she knew she'd give up right then and there. But Reiko yanked her to her feet and threw her through a wooden pole into the nearby wall, clearly annoyed by the interruption. Splinters exploded in a cloud around her, and she crumpled, gasping for air with a pained breath.

"Well, at last I get to meet the mighty Dragonslayer," Reiko said as Olivia weakly pushed herself up, exhausted and sore from his beating. "Your reputation precedes you." He twirled his scythe between his fingers, his annoyance apparent.

"As does yours," Sub-Zero growled. His voice was cold and threatening.

"I want to commend you on your victory against the Dragon King," he said. "True, it is long overdue. But I've heard that your fight with Onaga was truly something spectacular to behold, and I regret that I was unable to see it firsthand. According to the stories I've heard, you were exceptionally resilient, brave, and clever. I must say, then, that I'm not surprised to find that your daughter is the same way."

Her father didn't respond to that, merely glanced over at her. "Olivia, are you okay?" he asked, his voice concerned.

"Yeah," she croaked in pain, her back aching and her eyes swollen. "Dad, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wind up here," she whimpered. Seeing him there, knowing he was in the flesh, released all the ugly tension and pressure built inside her, like waking up from a dark dream to a sun-filled day. She cried again, but this time they were tears of happiness.

"Don't worry about that now," he told her. "It's going to be okay."

"Indeed," Reiko now spoke. "She and I were discussing her joining my side as an apprentice."

"Over my dead body," he snarled.

"Yes, that _was_ the general idea," he agreed before he threw out his hand and flexed his fingers.

Immediately, Sub-Zero dropped his sword and clutched his chest as he collapsed to his knees. He struggled against the pull of the General's magic, fighting to reclaim the red and purple auras that were slipping from his body with only a little struggle. Olivia watched in horror as her nightmare began to replay in real life.

"Dad!" she screamed, wailing for him as he groaned and grunted in the mud. But she knew that would not help him. She glanced coldly at Reiko, who was now her greatest enemy, her greatest opponent, the person who would keep her alive as his "apprentice" at her own expense. And she promised herself that she would defeat his plan, starting with saving her father.

"You're very strong, Dragonslayer," Reiko praised him. "I've never met one who's resisted my power so fiercely."

He was so preoccupied with Sub-Zero that he didn't even notice Olivia climb to her feet and bolt towards him like a sprinting mustang, a kori sword in her hand, ready to strike. Holding it now in both hands like an axe, she chopped down towards his head, preparing to split his skull in two. But just as she reached him, he moved ever so slightly to the right, and her sword slammed into the thick, angular plates protecting his shoulder. It clanged off the metal harmlessly, and with a snarl, he turned and shoved her backwards, his attention now on her.

At least he released his hold over her father, who slumped back into the mud weakly, his soul returned to him in an instant.

Reiko shoved Olivia yet again, and this time she fell back with a grunt as she deflected his scythe with her kori sword. An icy shock ran through her arm and across her chest at the impact, staggering her, as flashes of the General's power flickered through the connection. The Cryomancer straightened, scrambling for better footing.

When she found it, Olivia growled like a jackal, glaring at him with cold blue eyes reminiscent of Arctika in the spring. Before Reiko had time to register her intent, the speedy young Cryomancer had already leapt towards him, spraying thousands of tiny ice shards at him from her palms as she glided through the air. The General barely had time to summon a massive shield of green energy to save himself before the razor-sharp crystals cut him to ribbons.

Olivia, full of burning fury over the attempt on her father's life, gave Reiko no time to think. She had already leapt through the air foot-first to sail towards his chest with a loud shriek. He calmly stepped aside to grab her leg, but apparently saw Sub-Zero twitch from the corner of his eye. Just as the Grandmaster lifted his hands to lob an ice ball at him, Reiko calmly caught Olivia. She screamed in shock as he flung her violently into her father, and both slumped to the mud in a stunned haze.

"Olivia, get out of here," her father commanded after they spent a moment recovering, pulling her up as she struggled to catch her breath. "Find your mother."

"I'm not leaving you," she croaked. "You don't know what he's capable of. He'll kill you."

"I've fought worse," he said, tenderly stroking her cheek but sternly gazing into her eyes. "I'll be fine. Now, go!"

"No!" she yelled as she now threw a glowing ice ball at the General's head, but Reiko leaned back to dodge it, and it sailed harmlessly towards the wall behind him.

With a wolfish grin, he narrowed his eyes, giving her little warning as to what was coming. As fast as a bird of prey, he threw out his arm, and along with it his scythe. Like a boomerang, it caught her shoulder and dragged her back to him, with her now groaning in pain from where the sharp edge burrowed through her skin and snagged her as if he'd just caught a fish. She struggled slightly, compelled to stagger towards him against her will. Soon, she stumbled to the ground only a couple feet in front of him.

But as soon as Reiko realized it, Olivia had already swung her newly formed kori sword around and sliced him so hard across his face that it cut cleanly through his cheek. He moaned in anguish as he stumbled to the side and his blood streamed down his face and neck onto his armor. He gingerly felt his face, as shocked by her attack as he was wounded.

Infuriated now, Reiko lunged at her, but had forgotten Sub-Zero in this ordeal. The Cryomancer had already slid through sheets of ice only to reappear beside the General in time to attack him with a powerful roundhouse kick to the chest. Stunned, he flew through the air and crashed into a wall several feet away. Broken wood and plaster buried him as he slipped to the floor, clutching his chest as if it hurt to breathe. Then he slumped over, unconscious.

Still, Olivia looked at him warily. "Dad?" she asked.

"Stay back," he sternly ordered her as he crept towards Reiko with a new kori sword in his hand.

Her father cautiously approached, suspicious that the Outworld General was playing possum. Olivia knew this, and knew that with him, anything was possible. That is why, even though his eyes were firmly sealed shut, and he easily leapt to his feet and gracefully arched his scythe towards Sub-Zero's body, neither Cryomancer was truly surprised. Reiko opened his eyes in time to see his weapon cut cleanly up the Grandmaster's tunic, slicing it in a neat angle from the waist to his opposite shoulder. His kori sword toppled to the ground with a faint thud, his eyes wide with surprise at the sudden injury. But the General didn't waste time congratulating himself; he let his scythe carry him around in a full circle until he hooked Sub-Zero with it and flung his body like a ragdoll into the muck several feet away.

"Dad!" Olivia screamed as she saw blood bloom over his chest.

But Reiko was already charging towards her, though the speedy Cryomancer was now moving as well. She leaped into the air and landed on a sheet of ice that stretched and expanded as she rode it into her enemy. She screamed like a raving lunatic - she knew that's how she must've sounded but she didn't care - as she violently smashed into his chest, knocking him backwards, and she grunted in satisfaction as he toppled into the filth. His scythe slid from his grip through the mud, just out of reach.

Not giving him any time to recover, Olivia was upon him now, attacking him with another kori sword that glistened in the lightning from the pouring rain. Reiko barely had time to dodge the attack before the young Cryomancer was lunging at him, expertly swinging her weapon as if it was an extension of her body. As she gracefully cut through the air towards his head, he ducked and then hit her arm with a perfect crescent kick to her wrist. Immediately, her sword shattered, but she automatically drew back her other hand and launched an ice ball directly at him. The air around him tightened and solidified as the ball scraped harmlessly by, though patterns of frostbite formed across his skin, and he dove between her legs to retrieve his scythe.

It was Sub-Zero's turn, however, to attack, and he met him when he emerged. He chopped a new kori sword towards Reiko's head, but the General had stealthily grabbed his own weapon and parried his attack before he could cleave his skull in two. The Grandmaster grunted in surprise as Reiko slowly rose, unyielding to him, gradually overcoming him with his superior strength. Their faces both turned beet red as they struggled for a foothold over the battle, but as Olivia expected, Reiko quickly lost his patience with this stalemate. He managed to free one of his hands a moment before he thrust it at her father; once again, the Cryomancer's soul shifted loose, and as the reds and purples tried to flee him, he collapsed to his knees and dropped his weapon.

Olivia furiously lunged at him then, but in a move that struck her as more of an instinct than an actual plan of attack, he swung his scythe around to defend himself. Instantly, the tip of it plunged through her belly just below her breasts as he jerked her around in a half circle. She staggered backwards a few steps as she clawed at the searing pain roaring through her body now. Involuntary tears slipped down her cheeks as she first looked from the blade and then into Reiko's eyes. He appeared as surprised as she felt, like impaling her with his scythe had never been his intention.

"Olivia!" her father groaned, fighting to stand. "Oh, God, no."

She tried to answer him, but could not find her voice. It was too painful to produce sound, to breathe in the necessary amount of air and to expel it once again. The most she could manage was a pitiful whimper and a pathetic groan as she slid off the blade. Her blood absolutely soaked Reiko's scythe, and her clothes as well as it bubbled through the wound and gushed down her legs. She clutched her belly, feeling her hot blood stream around her fingers, her eyes still fixed on the General's, whose own face was now a storm cloud of rage at the turn of events.

"What a waste of a promising life," he growled in disgust. "No matter. I will take _both_ of your souls now."

With that, he threw out his hand towards the two Cryomancers, his fingers flexed and swirling with ethereal green energy. But something peculiar flexed in Olivia then, a random thought that filled up all the dark corners of her soul and made her whole once again. She was not bound by the past; that was who she used to be. Her feelings were not who she was, but how she felt at that moment. Her bad choices defined her yesterday, but they were not who she was today. And through all of this, she could start over. With a scream building inside her, building up and up and up, she threw out her own hands and shielded both her and her father from Reiko's blood magik.

Somehow, as she struggled to keep the General from breaking through her barrier, Olivia understood that it wasn't her cryogenic powers protecting them at all; it was something much greater than that, something augmented by the powers of Himavat and of every Cryomancer that came before her; it was the force of memory and desire; of rebelliousness and defiance; refusing to go quietly into that good night even though she knew, deep down, she ought to; and mostly, it was a force of love, for what is a more powerful force in nature than one who is willing to lay down their life to protect another?

She screamed as their powers met each other, and Reiko did too, surprised by this turn of events. His voice filled her head, seemingly shattering her brain. Ethereal blue met blood red, and the street glowed with magic. There was a quickening now, like a car accelerating-

No, not accelerating, but _hurtling_ her through the crackling and glowing energy held in a stalemate between them. _No, it's only in my mind!_ she screamed at herself. _I'm still right here, protecting Dad, I haven't moved at all_ -

Shrieking forward, slamming into a red and glowing wall made with crumbling bricks Realms old, universes old, gods old - she couldn't tell nor did she care to - rushing along it at the speed of human thought, rocketing by like a bullet in a vacuum, now angling upward toward some titanic light and exploding into utter whiteness, and that whiteness was everything, the whiteness was the heart of a star, the universe itself, _Creation_ itself, the light of the Elder Gods and divinity in its purest form-

And then there was an ocean, a great blue sea that spanned entire ages of men. Olivia felt no fear but a sense of awe because somehow, she knew its power dwarfed hers, and Reiko's, and Sub-Zero's, and as she soared towards it, she saw this ocean take the shape of Himavat, his hair wild and whiter than the snow in Arctika. His eyes slowly opened, their rich blue hue kind and ancient, the oldest and wisest things anyone could imagine.

 _Himavat, help me! Please help me!_

 _You seem to be doing just fine on your own, my dear Olivia_ , he replied with a smile. _I'm glad you've finally learned your lesson._

 _My father-_

 _Has learned his as well._

Olivia was soaring over the ocean now, and it seemed to go on and on beneath her. _Please help me, Himavat! We have to stop Reiko! For everyone's sake-_

 _You must help yourself, dear Olivia. You know I cannot interfere in matters such as this._

 _Tell me, please!_

 _You're already doing it_.

His voice was fading now, but she furrowed deep inside and heard something else: Reiko. He screamed through her mind, a scream of frustrated rage but also of...fear and pain. He was not used to losing; such a thing had never happened to him, especially at the hands of a fatally wounded teenager, and up until several moments ago, he didn't think it ever could. Olivia felt him writhing against her, _pushing_ her as if he wanted to get away as fast as he could.

Her brain was whirling. Exhaustion tugged at her with strong hands. She couldn't even remember ever feeling this tired. But somehow, she pushed back at Reiko, slamming so hard into him with her powers that it drove her to her knees and weakened him as well. Still, the General fought her, blindly and stubbornly insisting on winning, as he had always done before. He screamed again, his pain worse now. Light flared around them both. The crackling magic overpowered even the brilliant flashes of lightning illuminating the darkened streets.

And then a cracking gunshot broke through her thoughts as both she and Reiko pulled back their powers. She looked at the General, panting and in shock, her voice hoarse from screaming, as he looked down at his chest in astonishment. There, a smoking black hole seeped blood down his body. Startled, Olivia risked a glance behind her and saw Erron standing several yards away on a nearby rooftop, his guns drawn in either hand.

After several long seconds that might have well lasted an eternity, Reiko finally looked up, sneering at the gunslinger. Ethereal red light glowed in the bullet hole and pushed out the bullet slowly as the flesh knitted together easily. Then he looked at Olivia.

"Don't look so surprised, young one," he said. "The blood magik from my kamidogu sustains me."

And once more, he tried stealing Sub-Zero's and her soul, flexing his fingers at them as he threw his arm toward her, but she met his attack again. Her power was waning now as her physical body grew weaker, but that was okay because she sensed that Reiko had used up the last of his blood magik too and could not hang on much longer. She hurtled past the ocean in her mind now, hearing Himavat's gentle voice speak words she could not understand while the vastness of it dragged on and on forever, her body angling down to plunge into it. And suddenly, Olivia understood somehow that this was where she was destined to stay, here in this water at the beginning and the end of all things.

"Olivia!" she heard her father scream from somewhere far away, but his voice was fading the way radio stations become staticky and broken the further you travel from town. For a moment, terror filled her. She knew that soon, she'd cease to hear him at all.

She was beyond him now, bulleting into water that was deeper than deep, skidding towards that wall at the edge of the universe where she could cross over, and beyond it she sensed another shape, and that shape was pulling Reiko's strings like some sort of sadistic puppeteer…

 _Shinnok_ , she deduced, terrified.

 _Don't think about him...he can't hurt you_ , Himavat's voice soothed her. _Be brave, Olivia! Fight him! Stop Reiko!_

She yanked the last bit of energy from her life force and shoved it towards the General, even as the edges of her vision were beginning to fade into darkness and she soared ever closer to the ocean below her, drawing in a great breath, she shrieked once more in mad determination. Reiko screamed in response; she sensed his pain was excruciating now - perhaps partly because, while it had saved him numerous times before, his blood magik was all spent up and frost began to creep into his hands, freezing them into place…

And suddenly, the mighty General could deflect her cryogenic powers no more, and they broke through his defenses. Olivia had hardly anything left, but the tiny bit that was hers to control proved to be enough. It struck Reiko directly in his chest, and for a moment he glanced at her, his eyes bulging and expressive, almost... _hurt_ that she'd won. And then, a loud popping and crackling sound began to rise as a sheen of bluish white ice quickly spread over his body. He croaked pitifully one last time before the ice solidified completely and he stood like a statue, dead.

 _Not bad, my dear Olivia. Now it is time to come home._

"Olivia!"

She knew the voice belonged to her father, but it had faded...faded...faded...She thought of radio stations again as she focused on the rushing sea...and then the warm sun...smells of salt and sand and tropical flowers carried on the wind…

Olivia collapsed onto her back into a puddle, the wound in her belly still spraying blood as the rain beat on her face, faintly aware that her father was weaving and stumbling towards her like a drunk at the Phoenix back in New York.

"Olivia!"

The Phoenix. She inwardly laughed at that. It was so far away now. So unimportant.

She felt everything pouring out of her along with her blood, and for a moment, she fought it. She didn't want to die...not yet. But a small voice inside commanded her to relax, that this was inevitable, and it would be easier on her if she didn't resist. That voice was so adamant that she believed what it said, and the fight inside her fled her just as quickly as it came. And it took with it her anger and her fear, and all the hurt and the regret and the confusion that she'd ever felt in her life, leaving only a sense of peace and contentment. She felt so clear and calm inside, like a still piece of glass skimmed off the top of an Arctic river that refracts the sunlight into a thousand glittering rainbows.

Olivia felt an arm slide beneath her, and when she looked up, she saw that her father was crying, the tears coursing down his dirty cheeks while he used his powers to try to staunch her bleeding. Somehow, in her daydream about oceans and light and peace, she realized he was yelling at Erron to help him. He was fading though, fading into the background, even as he cradled her and slicked back her soggy hair, kissing her battered forehead and telling her how much he loved her.

"Just hang on," he was saying. "Your mother is close. Just hang on, Olivia."

 _What are you so afraid of_? she wondered as he rocked her and her vision darkened. _I'm okay now. I feel so much better._ Even still, every shred of discomfort and negativity she'd ever felt continued trickling out. It wouldn't be long now, she knew. At least she got to see him one last time. But she needed to say something before she could go.

"Daddy?" she whispered, the word a mere struggle to say.

"What?" he asked, gazing at her desperately.

"I don't mind if you call me Livy," she said with a weak smile. She closed her eyes, thinking about how she should apologize to him, but as her brain fought to form the words, she died.

* * *

 **Author's Note: I look forward to your angry emails. Also, I know you were probably expecting Sub-Zero to rescue Olivia by fighting and killing Reiko himself. I honestly played with that idea, but here's why I didn't do it. This is more Olivia's story than his. In my mind, that meant she had to be the one to deal the killing blow, not him. On top of that, I wanted to convey that she's a strong, independent woman, not a helpless damsel in distress that needs the men in her life to save her every time she turns around. If you expect that from me, let me tell you how I feel about Bella Swann and _Twilight_. But yeah, for the sake of girl power, Olivia had to win. I hope you like how I executed her final battle with Reiko. **

**MKDemigodZ-Warrior, me too!**

 **Esha Napoleon, thanks! I'm glad you like it!**

 **Darkis Shadow, I did not notice that Tanya typo, but I'll go back and fix it ASAP. Thank you for letting me know! I hope this chapter lived up to your expectations!**

 **Slytherin Studios, I'm glad!**

 **ROCuevas, thanks!**

 **Obelisk of Light, your predictions may have been wrong, but I'm still always entertained by them. I do love keeping you guessing ;) With Tanya getting away, clearly destined to free Mileena, I kept hearing the MKX game in my head when Kotal Kahn fights Tanya and says something about how she freed Mileena from prison. So that was the biggest reason she got away. Otherwise, I would've loved to have killed her. I am definitely not a fan of hers. As for the lack of a brutality, truth be told, I forgot all about it when I was writing. But it was probably for the best since Havik had to get away this time too. I've got plans for him *rubs hands together wickedly* muah ha ha ha ha!**


	42. A Father's Love

It was like sinking into his nightmares. For the longest moment, Kuai Liang helplessly cradled Olivia in his arms, not entirely certain what had just happened. She'd saved him. She'd sacrificed herself and she'd _saved_ him. And now she was gone. It didn't quite feel real to him, let alone possible. Yet, there she was, her body broken and limp, her blue eyes vacant and staring at the sky.

It was those eyes he focused on - his daughter's eyes - _his_ eyes. He was so used to seeing them full of life and light. Sometimes, when she was truly happy, they sparkled like thousands of glittering sapphires that warmed anything they gazed upon. Bright...always so bright. They were anything but cold, he'd often mused. But now, they were just...empty. The color was the same as always, yes. But somehow, they felt as dark as twin black holes conquering light itself. They had gone cold. Olivia's soul - _Olivia_ \- was gone.

And when Kuai Liang came to this realization, a cry built in his throat and kept building until it felt like it should burst into some sort of mad scream to the sky, but the only sound that emerged was a pitiful groan that seemed more like the nonsensical jabberings of someone mentally impaired than that of a grieving father. Tears streamed down his face as that pathetic noise grew louder, forced out harder. The noise kept time with his hands, which now pawed at Olivia's face and hair frantically as if doing so might somehow make this not real anymore, as if it could stir her from this ghastly sleep. He lifted her limp body higher into his arms, rocking her back and forth now, sobbing through those strange moans, his voice strangled in his throat.

"Oh, hell…" he heard someone say. Kuai Liang looked up and saw Erron approaching. He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but he just didn't have the words. But for the first time since he'd met the gunslinger, the man looked downright sympathetic and sad.

"Reiko…" he managed to croak out, as if he needed to explain. Erron already knew. He'd seen for himself.

Now Kuai Liang fixed his sight on the frozen statue of the Outworld General. Anger swirled through him just like a tempest readying to strike. And like a helpless vessel caught in its fury, he felt himself dashed against the deadly rocks without mercy. He drowned in that feeling, even as he released his grip on his oldest daughter and slid to his feet, fog wafting from his fingers. Before he even realized he'd done it, he'd crossed the distance between them and crushed a kori sword through the top of Reiko's head. Instantly, his body exploded into thousands of chunks of frozen meat brilliantly colored red and blue.

He was still trembling in fury, his fists clenched tightly around his sword's hilt, when Anya now ran down the street towards them, screaming his name. He looked up at her, and sudden hope surged through his heart. Maybe it wasn't too late for Olivia; maybe the Healer could bring her back just as she'd brought back Rowena a few days prior. As adrenaline pounded through his body, he dropped his weapon and bolted towards her.

"Anya!" he yelled back. "Hurry! There's no time!" He gripped her by the wrist and practically dragged her to Olivia's side.

When the nurse saw the state her daughter was in, she began to wail in grief, even as she gripped her face in her hands and willed her powers into her. "No, no, no, no," she sobbed. "Oh, God, I'm not strong enough. Olivia!" Immediately, she wilted across the young Cryomancer's chest.

"What do you mean 'you're not strong enough'?" he hissed. "You're not even going to try?"

"I'm trying," she squealed through tears. "But Morgan...I used my powers up saving Morgan-" And with that, she began to cry even harder, no longer making any coherent words.

"Goddammit, this is your _daughter_!" he howled at her. "Bring. Her. Back!"

"I'm trying," she wailed again, her voice muffled by the swell of Olivia's breasts. "Oh, God, I'm trying." She sobbed, kissing her daughter's face and smoothing back her locks of hair from her face. "Come back, baby," she babbled through her tears. "Please come back." But there was nothing.

 _Piss her off_ , a voice deep within him commanded. _Make her angry with you like she's never been before_.

And Kuai Liang suddenly remembered that Anya could recharge her strength - provided, of course, she stole the energy from someone else. But she hadn't been able to save Blue when she'd tried that. She, as Fujin had said, wasn't angry with the Edenian because he was a victim of circumstance and had no other choice. There was no instinctive need for retribution inside her heart, clawing to get out, hungry to make him pay. Not like there was when the Tarkatan nearly killed her husband. And not like there was now when she secretly hated him for sending Olivia away in the first place. So as the Cryomancer watched his wife wail over their daughter's body, he knew his inner voice was right. And in that moment, he knew what he had to do to save Olivia.

Scowling, he pushed Anya off their daughter into the mud and yelled, "Get away from her!"

At first, puzzlement crossed the Hydromancer's tear-stained face. "Kuai Liang, what-"

"Shut up!" he screamed at her as he willed his face into a stone-cold mask. It was no easy feat for him, given the swell of grief and self-loathing building inside of him. "You don't love her. You're not even trying to help her. So you get away from her."

Now a scowl crossed her face as she climbed to her feet and crossed her arms. "She's _my_ daughter too, Kuai Liang!" She looked over to the gunslinger. "Tell him she's my daughter too, Erron."

"He's not going to tell you anything," the Grandmaster growled before the other could reply, stalking towards her to intimidate her. As predicted, she took a few uneasy steps backwards. "You're going to go away now. Go run back to Kailyn and Morgan. We all know they mean more to you anyway."

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" she yelled, now holding her ground.

"Oh, don't pretend that you haven't always thought the Hydromancers were better than the Cryomancers," he replied, digging the proverbial knife deeper, knowing how much it would hurt her even though he also knew it wasn't true. "Deep down, you always thought your people were right about us. And deep down, you always resented that Olivia was like me instead of like you."

"You are _way_ out of line, pal!" she yelled. "Your powers make no difference to me. I love her with all my heart, just like I love you."

"Obviously not," he retorted. Now he shoved her shoulders back, pushing her back slightly. She stumbled, but stubbornly refused to fall.

Anya glared at him like she might like to punch him, but then sudden understanding dawned on her face. "I know what you're trying to do, Kuai Liang," she said. "It's not going to work. If I couldn't take the life force of a complete stranger for Blue, what makes you think I can take the life force from my soulmate now?" Her face was still a storm cloud of rage, but her tone was gentler now.

"Oh, is that what I am to you?" he demanded to know, aching inside. He hated himself for saying these things to her. He wanted to throw himself at her feet, apologize to her, and beg for forgiveness. But he stifled the urge. This was a sacrifice they both had to make...for Olivia.

"Yes!" she yelled back, crying. "I love you."

"If you loved me, you'd have supported me from the beginning."

Her face wrenched into an ugly mask of confusion. "What in the _hell_ are you talking about?" she demanded to know. "I've supported you since I've been with you. Have you forgotten how I took care of you in the hospital when Shao Kahn nearly killed you?"

Kuai Liang inwardly winced at the memory of her refusing to leave his side as he recovered from his injuries. It was like being lashed with his father's cat o'nine tails all over again.

"Or how I quit my job and left my home to join you in Arctika when you decided to reform the Lin Kuei?"

Another flash of pain.

"How I had to put up with Frost trying to destroy us and kill me because you insisted you wanted her in the Temple? And then because of her, I wound up as Rain's prisoner?"

More flaring agony, the deepest lash yet.

"Or worst of all, you sending Olivia away without even talking to me about it, and your decision ultimately getting her kidnapped and killed!" she screamed, now sobbing again.

Now the pain was guilt. She was right. This was all his fault. Once more, Kuai Liang had to stifle his urge to throw himself at her feet and beg for her forgiveness. But still, he somehow reached deep down into his darkest recesses to pull out his most despicable self and fired back. "No, Anya, this is _your_ fault," he growled at her.

"Excuse me?" she recoiled indignantly.

"You never supported me about how to raise her," he growled. "I told her she couldn't dress a certain way or do certain things, and behind my back, you let her think all of that was okay. _You're_ the one who convinced me to let her go to New York. You know I wasn't thrilled with the idea in the first place, but oh no, she'll be fine with Cassie for the weekend even though she's only seventeen years old. If you'd even thought for a second that I was right, she _never_ would've gone to the club and I'd never have had to send her away."

"You didn't have to send her away in the first place!" she screeched. "She's your daughter, Kuai Liang! Whatever happened to forgiveness and understanding?"

"It's that kind of soft thinking that led her to this," he hissed, gesturing towards Olivia's corpse. "You're a terrible mother," he spat at her, inwardly cringing at every word. "And this is your fault. So you can leave the Temple. I won't stop you. I don't want you there anymore anyway. You let her down and you let _me_ down. But our other children are staying with me. You're unfit to raise them."

"I am _not_ unfit!" she furiously screamed as he turned his back on her.

He cast a glance at Erron, who nodded his head ever so slightly in understanding. And then Kuai Liang crouched beside Olivia and cupped her cheek, thinking about the horrible things he'd ever done in his life, and especially to his wife and oldest child. Anya was in terrible shape right now, he knew, because she hated life. She stood behind him, sobbing in hysterics at losing her daughter and the horrible things he'd just said to her. But even with all that, _he_ was in far worse shape than her because he hated _himself_. He had been weak; he'd been a coward. He was nothing but a failure as a father to Olivia, and it seemed to him that his own death was the only thing he could offer to redeem himself to her. It was time to drive the last nail in the coffin.

He stood and faced his wife again, and saw her face glowing red with understandable rage. "Why are you still here?" he roared at her. "Just go! Go back to your damn people. Take care of them and yourself. It's what you're best at."

"She's _my_ daughter too!" she shouted back, repeating herself once again.

"No, she's not!" he yelled. "She's a Cryomancer! Not a Hydromancer. That means she's mine, not yours. And thank God for that much. At least she was strong like me, not weak like _you_. Not weak like all the Hydromancers." For added insult, he spat on the ground when he said the word.

"I'm not weak, Kuai Liang!"

He scoffed at that, stalking towards her once more. "Then why can't you save her?" he demanded to know. He deliberately laced his words with as much ice as he could. When she didn't answer, he scowled. "That's what I thought," he said. Now he pointed the way she came. "Run back to your people now," he commanded her. "You're not welcome here."

"I'm not leaving Olivia!"

"Yes, you are!" he shouted back, and with that, he slapped her. She looked at him with eyes as hurt as they were surprised, since he'd never done that in all the years they'd been together. And he hated himself even more for doing it now. "Go away!" he yelled as he now pushed her. "You don't belong here!" One more push.

"Stop it!" she yelled.

"Go away!" he roared louder now. Another push. "You're weak, Anya! I don't know why I married you!"

"Stop it!" she shrieked again, her eyes glowing like burning amethysts now.

"Get out of here!" He slapped her again.

Kuai Liang recognized the exact moment when he made her snap. An oily black shadow crossed her eyes, and for the briefest of seconds, her face was no longer the most beautiful one he'd ever seen in his life, but a twisted and demonic thing, gray and wicked.

"No!" she howled as she finally lunged at him and dug her fingernails into his cheeks.

And now, Kuai Liang stood silent and helpless in Anya's mind. It was all he could do to keep his wife's blind savagery from dragging him under like an alligator death-rolling with its prey. He'd never guessed what he was creating, never imagined the monster he'd spawned. He'd unleashed the power of Anya's mind without recognizing the controls which kept that power in check, and only now had he begun to understand fully what he'd done.

He had shattered those controls. The mercy and compassion she'd been a slave to no longer existed, only a red, ravening hunger. Yet terrible as that might be, there was worse. He'd found the hole Anya had gnawed through the wall about her inner rage, and she couldn't close it. Somehow, without even realizing it was possible, Anya had reached beyond herself. Kuai Liang had followed their connection to the Hydromancer's own grief and rage, her own destruction, and saw that it made her incalculable powers inhumanly strong.

Something shifted inside of Kuai Liang then, as if his spirit were misaligned with his body. It occurred to him that, like he'd wanted all along, Anya was ripping his soul straight from his heart, and the thing instinctively grasped for him to save it. He resisted it somehow and let her take everything that she needed and more.

And as he grew weaker, crumpling in her fierce grip, memories passed from his mind and into hers, bouncing around from thought to thought in no linear order. Confronting Eidotheia, the guardian of his Dragon Medallion, and learning of Anya's pregnancy with Olivia. A Temple high in the Himalayas where he fought every second of his life to survive. Sifu Halsey doting on him like a father. Meeting Anya for the first time and stumbling over his words and actions because he was so enchanted by her. Reuniting with his mother after nearly twenty-five years. Reuniting with Bi-han after Raiden freed him from Noob Saibot's grip. Playing in the mountain forests with Tomas. Fighting Shao Kahn. Fighting Frost. Fighting Onaga. Fighting Reiko. A passageway to freedom covered with a broken grate that swung upwards with hardly any effort. Making love to Anya at the pool of Massilia where they, according to Hydromancer beliefs, officially became husband and wife. Holding each of his children in his arms moments after they were born. Holding Olivia…

 _What are you going to name her? Or do you know yet?_ the nurse's voice echoed in his mind.

 _No, we know,_ Anya told her with a smile. She glanced at Kuai Liang and then back to her nurse. _Her name is Olivia._

Kuai Liang sat in the hospital recliner by her bed, holding his newborn daughter, his first child, in his arms, certain he was going to break her as small as she felt to him. Her tiny face was slightly squished, but her color was good and her eyes, like molten silver, were bright. Sleepily, she looked up at him, and he looked at her, and then gently caressed her cheek with the tip of his finger. God, she was so perfect, so beautiful. How on earth, he wondered, had something so wonderful come from him?

 _Her name is Olivia_.

 _You've got to save her, Anya_.

Now Kuai Liang looked into the eyes of his wife, his knees buckling under the weight of his body, his life leaving him. She seemed like a madwoman, her hair soaked and wild, her eyes full of hatred and bloodlust. She groaned a long, guttural sound that didn't even seem human anymore, but more like a lion tearing into its prey. It was not who she was. But right now, it was who he needed her to be. Using the last of his strength, he wrapped his hands around hers, unable to speak with his mouth, but willing his thoughts into her mind because he knew she could hear them.

 _Anya...save Olivia. Save her, my love. Take my life force and save her. Please..._

And with that, he collapsed completely onto his back. Only then did the Hydromancer Healer finally release her grip on him. She stood there, shocked, sudden recognition dawning on her as she realized what she'd just done to her husband, and why he'd allowed it in the first place, the rage instantly vanishing from her face. Now it twisted into an expression of guilt and sorrow as she threw her hands over her mouth and started to kneel beside him to help him.

"Oh, my God! What have I done? Kuai Liang..."

But as the Cryomancer rolled his head towards Olivia, looking at his lifeless daughter laying in the mud, Erron gripped Anya by the elbow and said, "No, darlin'. He meant for you to save your little girl, not him."

"But-"

"Dammit, woman, don't let his sacrifice be in vain! Help Olivia!"

Anya nodded, sobbing, as she crouched over her and once again placed her hand on her, this time reaching with her other hand towards the sky, pulling down power from above. Kuai Liang sprawled on his back in the mud, watching her heal Olivia as darkness crept around the corners of his vision. _Oh, please, let this work_ , he mumbled in his mind as he saw his life force, in hues of magnificent purples and reds, pass from his wife's hand into their daughter's heart, enveloping the child. He swallowed hard and drew in a long, ragged breath as he began to pray to whomever was listening. _Whatever strength and power the universe has given to me, let it pass to her as well. Himavat...help her save my daughter._

And then, his sight went black.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Once again, I look forward to your angry emails LOL**

 **Lightrunner, I hope this chapter reassures you about your concerns. :)**

 **Obelisk of Light, I guess I can see the parallel now that you mention it. Cassie got a green halo and Olivia was enveloped by her cryogenic energy. That wasn't intentional, but perhaps my brain subconsciously came up with that. Who knows?**

 **PinkRedRose2, did I surprise you with the way this update went? ;) As for _Twilight_ , I'll tell you that I watched the first and second movies and tried to read the first book. After a chapter in, I wanted to gut myself with a rusty spoon because there was nothing remotely likable about Bella. To me, she was bratty and annoying. But long story short, she's the ultimate Mary Sue. I try sooo hard to avoid making those same mistakes with my OCs, and especially the female ones. I'm glad you recognize and appreciate that about my work because it really is important to me to make my characters three dimensional. **

**Darkis Shadow, if I hit you with the feels before, I expect I've dunked you in them completely this time! At least, I hope I have. If my readers aren't upset and sad after reading this chapter, then I've utterly failed as a writer. But trust me, I've got a plan ;)**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, it's okay, Doc, sometimes life slows me down too. It's no problem :) But yeah, I knew you'd all be surprised by that ending. I've known that I would have that happen since the very beginning of this story. And Reiko...well, let's just say he got his...for now ;)**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, truthfully, I may "retire" from writing fan-fic after this story is over. I haven't decided yet. I know I need to get serious about my novel. That's going to be my golden ticket, you know? But that said, I do have a few ideas rattling around in my brain for the MKX storyline.**

 **en-lumine, you're the best. And I'm sorry for this update. That is all. :D**

 **ROCuevas, thanks!**

 **Reptaliator, I knew for a while now that I wanted her to say that line, "I don't mind if you call me Livy." I thought it'd evoke the most feels in my readers. It certainly makes _me_ want to cry a bit too. And yeah, I wanted him to be there to help her out, but it's her story so she had to save the day this time. Dear old Dad deserves a break. **


	43. Against the Shadow

**Author's Note: Thanks to Haven Rose and en-lumine for helping me really get down and dirty with Takeda's part. That part was _not_ easy for me because it's one of those things that can easily become cliched. I hope I succeeded in making it good. Also thanks to Obelisk of Light for suggesting a scene with the Storm Brothers. I hope you all enjoy this update! Let me know in the comments what you think. Oh, because, TL;DR, the first reviewer for this update will also be my 400th for this story. ;) **

* * *

When Takeda came to, he felt like he'd just woken up from a strange nightmare that didn't seem quite real and hovered just on the edge of his memory. Or perhaps he'd been sick; he vaguely remembered Olivia telling him he had a high fever, and she'd fought incessantly to bring it down. But he quickly realized he was tightly bound in rope, hogtied like a psychotic prisoner, so that couldn't have been the problem. He was lying on his side on the porch of an old, Z'Unkaran building, shielded from the still-pouring rain by the roof, but soaked to the bone all the same. Two familiar faces were bending over him, peering at him suspiciously.

"Grandmaster?" he croaked when his eyes met Hanzo's. "Am I dreaming?"

"No, _Deshi_ ," he said. "I am here. And so is your father."

Takeda glanced at the other man kneeling beside his mentor. At first, he regarded the swordsman hesitantly. He _knew_ his father was in Outworld, traveling with the Earthrealm Champions, looking for him and Olivia. But to see him in the flesh for the first time in years...his heartbeat quickened with heavy shots of adrenaline. Part of him - a big part, if he was being honest with himself - wanted nothing more than to throw his arms around Kenshi and hold him tight forever. But red washed over his vision when he thought of the way the man had abandoned him, and abandoned Suchin years before that, needlessly and selfishly, and rising heat flowed steadily from his heart, scorching angry channels through his arteries and veins. It was this emotion, this fury, that won out, and Takeda gazed at him with cold, cruel eyes.

"Takeda, my son-" Kenshi began, but the teenager interrupted him.

"Grandmaster, what happened?" he demanded to know, completely disregarding his father.

The swordsman tensed as Hanzo exchanged a look with him, but the ninja sighed and said, "Reiko cursed you somehow," he explained as he started to cut the boy loose of his bonds.

"He tried to use a kamidogu to infect you with blood magik," Kenshi's voice quickly overlapped the Grandmaster's. "You were beginning to fade and the spell was overcoming you completely. If I'm right, you would have stayed like that, your will totally at the mercy of his for the rest of your life."

Takeda only briefly glanced at him. The swordsman's face was thinner and more gaunt than he remembered, as if he'd been starving himself for months, perhaps even years. He'd also been wounded in battle, the bulk of his injuries inflicted by Takeda himself. _Good_ , the boy thought, stiffening. _That's the least he deserves_.

"How did you break the spell, Grandmaster?" he asked as he slowly sat up, once more ignoring his father. There was a part of him that believed he'd be trapped as the General's slave forever. He thought of the knife that plunged into his stomach, an old, stone thing that seemed like it should be the most ineffective weapon ever, yet it was unusually sharp, and he shuddered, the memory of yanking it out still painful in his mind.

As he sat completely upright, he groaned; the pain in the wound in his shoulder from Scorpion's kunai was steadily growing, and a blazing fire spread from it to his fingers. But he considered himself lucky that's all his Grandmaster had done to him. He knew that the infamous Scorpion could've done far worse had he wanted.

"We do not know, _Deshi_ ," Hanzo said. "You just suddenly began to come around. Perhaps Reiko is gravely wounded or even dead. Olivia's father, Grandmaster Sub-Zero, was chasing after him when last we saw him. He wanted his blood."

"I want it as well," Kenshi gently told him, putting a hand on his son's uninjured shoulder. "I hope that Sub-Zero left me a piece of that coward. I've been so worried about you and what he's done-"

Takeda shrugged the man's hand off his shoulder and scowled. "Don't touch me," he snapped as Kenshi recoiled like he'd just been punched in the gut.

" _Deshi_ ," Hanzo now growled, "you will treat your father with the respect he is due."

The teenager merely glowered at his teacher but did speak the insult that hovered on the tip of his tongue; after dumping him off on the Shirai Ryu Temple and running away like a thief in the night, Kenshi was due absolutely no respect.

"What do you remember?" his father now cautiously asked him, bracing for the inevitable hatred.

Takeda thought about it, the memories coming back to him, but he looked only at his Grandmaster. "I remember..." he said to his mentor, seeing mental images of Reiko throwing that knife into his gut, and his downward spiral into possessed madness after that. "Olivia...she tried to help me survive and I...I…" He looked at his teacher now, his eyes wild with guilty horror. "I tried to _kill_ her!" Unsteadily, he pulled himself to his feet, prompting both Hanzo and his father to jump to theirs as well.

"What are you doing, _Deshi_?" the Grandmaster demanded to know.

"Reiko's still after her," he chattered away urgently. "I've got to help her."

"No, my son, you are still too weak," Kenshi gently said, taking him by the arm. "You are in no condition to fight right now."

Scowling, Takeda ripped his arm away. " _You're_ too weak," he hissed.

"Takeda-"

"No!" he yelped. "At least she doesn't pretend to care about me. She had more reason than anyone to leave me to die in the desert. But she didn't. She took care of me, far more than _you_ ever have."

" _Deshi_!" Hanzo snapped. "That's enough!"

"No!" he snapped back. "This...this... _coward_ doesn't get to abandon me at the Temple and then suddenly pop back in ten years later like he's any kind of a father to me and tell me what to do." He scowled at Kenshi, knowing that the man couldn't see his expression but hoping he could sense the venom of it all the same.

"Kenshi is your father-"

"No, he's not, Grandmaster," Takeda argued. "You're more of a father to me than he ever will be." His heart was pounding now, practically beating out of his chest. "I don't know who _he_ is."

"Takeda!" he roared, but the teenager couldn't stop now, even if he wanted to. He was drowning in the pain, drowning in the hatred, and it felt glorious to let it flow freely.

"Why are you even here, Kenshi?" he hissed, stepping right into his father's face. "You don't care. You've never cared."

"You're so wrong, my son," the swordsman quietly replied.

"Stop calling me your son!" he yelled. "You haven't _earned_ the right." He anxiously shuffled from one foot to the next, wiping his mouth, and then glaring daggers at the blind man. "After you left, Grandmaster Hasashi kept telling me you'd return. 'When?' I'd ask him, all the time. 'Soon,' he'd say. I was a fool to believe him. But still, I'd always ask him. 'When will my Papa-san return, Grandmaster?' For a _year_ I bothered him every day." Tears welled up in Takeda's eyes, and he scrubbed them away in embarrassment. "Then, after a while, I finally gave up. I spent hours awake every night when I was supposed to be sleeping wondering what I'd done wrong to make you want to leave me. Every. Single. Night. What was so horrible about _me_ that you'd take me from my home and my friends just to abandon me like you did? Was I really so unlovable?" His voice broke a little at that.

"It was too dangerous for you to stay with me-"

"No, you shut up!" he yelled, angrily pointing his finger at him. "I am _sick_ of hearing that excuse. You could have stayed with the Shirai Ryu if you wanted to. If you're good enough friends with Grandmaster Hasashi to dump _me_ on him, you could've stayed. But you didn't." He inhaled deeply. "You didn't."

"Wicked men were hunting him, _Deshi_ ," Hanzo now interrupted. "You know that. He did not want to endanger the Shirai Ryu, nor did he want to endanger you."

"I had nightmares every night for a year!" Takeda yelled back at his teacher. "I dreamed of my mother every night."

"Those don't sound like nightmares," Kenshi said, puzzled.

"No, they don't, do they?" he hissed back indignantly. "They were wonderful dreams. They were so real. Like she was there with me, playing games with me just like we used to when…" he trailed off and let the tears fall freely now. The rain concealed them, so it didn't matter if he cried. "For a little while, it was like I was home with her again. And then I'd wake up and be an orphan all over again." He stomped into his father's face. "Do you know what torture is, Kenshi?" he growled. "Torture is waking up to your mother's dying every morning."

The swordsman winced at that. "I've thought of you every day since I left," he told him, his voice calm but small. "I regret what I did to you, even though my decision was right."

"You regret killing my mother?" he scoffed.

Now Kenshi's face wrinkled in confusion. "I didn't kill your mother, Takeda," he said. "She died...she died in an accident."

"So you say," he retorted. "But maybe you just killed her so you could kidnap me, and then decided I was too much trouble so you dumped me off on Grandmaster Hasashi."

" _Deshi_ , that's enough!" Hanzo now yelled, and finally the teenager backed down. "He did not kill your mother. He did not kidnap you. You know not of what you speak and your anger is gravely misplaced. You must forgive him, Takeda."

The boy trembled as he drew his fingers into fists. There were many, many debts the swordsman had to pay, and Takeda would never be content until he got his pound of flesh. Fortunately, he was still in a killing sort of mood. His eyes turned to ice as he stared at his father's miserable face.

"He doesn't deserve my forgiveness," he growled. Finally, he looked at his teacher once more. "I'm going to help Olivia. It's the least I can do after everything she put herself through to save me, and after everything I did to her. You can either help me, or not. But I'm going."

And with that, he stormed off into the darkness, leaving the two men standing there in silence.

* * *

Gingerly, Anya touched Olivia's brow. Under the sheen of rainwater, her skin was cool to the touch, and she'd already taken on the ghastly pallor of death. _My daughter is dead_ , she thought as Erron knelt beside her, watching. She had known. Even before she stumbled into the intersection and found her and her husband, she had known. She had sensed it. As she'd ran from Morgan and Kailyn, she'd had a vision of the young Cryomancer with porcelain skin and long, walnut hair drowning in blood. It had spurred her to run even faster.

Anya should cry, she knew, but her eyes had gone as dry as ash. She had already cried all the tears from her body, and the tears had been washed away by the rain. There was confusion. She always thought a moment like this would be...bigger. Houses should've been caving in, tornadoes ripping through town and devastating everything. People running through the streets screaming like madmen and pulling their hair out of their heads. She never thought watching her own child and husband die would be such a small moment. The world, she argued with herself, should've stopped turning.

There was a moment of dizziness, and a deep ache swelling inside of her heart. Yet she felt strong, stronger than she ever had. It was Kuai Liang's gift to her, his sacrifice in order to save their precious daughter. His voice, his thoughts, his knowledge, his memories...his _heart_. All of them were swirling in her head right now, a buzzing in her brain that itched and gnawed at her spirit. She suddenly understood why Shang Tsung had feasted on souls so often; stealing and absorbing all the power from just one brought her a sense of euphoria to ease her pain, and also the strength to work miracles.

Anya glanced at Kuai Liang wistfully. Every secret he'd ever kept from her belonged to her now. She remembered his childhood as if it was her own. She saw An Zhi, his father, abuse and torture him until the day he died. Beatings with a cat o'nine tails, deliberately snapping his bones, pitting him and his brother against each other just to ensure their obedience. But no matter what horrors Kuai Liang endured, the tiny little boy with sparkling blue eyes tried so hard to make his father happy, to do everything right just to curry an ounce of favor, perhaps even some small affection, and he never gave up on the man no matter how many times he failed. He had loved his father as much as he feared him, and the only thing he ever really wanted was for his father to love him back.

And that was why Kuai Liang had tried so hard with Olivia. He wanted her to feel every little emotion he'd craved from his father as a child. He would go to extraordinary lengths to make her understand this - he would protect her, he would play with her, he would discipline her, and he would fight for her. Everything he'd ever done since she was born, from every rule he'd ever made to giving up his own soul to restore hers, was done to prove to her that she was loved.

And when Anya realized exactly why her husband was so headstrong about his children, and especially his oldest daughter, her fury with him fizzled away into nothing. He was wrong - she'd never concede on that much. He should never have sabotaged Olivia's future merely because he was afraid of the steady march of time. But she finally understood why he'd gone to such extreme lengths to keep her his little girl a while longer. Deep down, his soul whispered to Anya, he was afraid that if she grew up, she'd cease to love him back.

Crushed at the revelation, wishing she could shake Kuai Liang and tell him how silly he was, Anya pulled her eyes away from him before she lost her composure completely, and with it, her chance to save Olivia. She lifted her hand to the sky to draw down the power of the Elder Gods just as Himavat had taught her, and placed the other hand on her daughter's cheek.

Instantly, she was whisked to somewhere far away, a place she had only seen in dreams, and when _she_ was on the verge of death after Rain shot her with a poisoned arrow. She saw sunlight glittering on the vast sea, and the coast alongside it, rich with the scent of sand and death. Wind blew through the long grasses, and they rippled like water. She ran barefoot across that shoreline, searching.

 _Come home, Olivia_ …

Her husband was the first person that she found. Kuai Liang's eyes gazed at her in sorrow. "Save her, my love," he told her. One minute he was there with her in her vision, clear as reality, and the next he was fading, his flesh translucent, less substantial than air. "Save her," he whispered, thin as a ghost, and then he was gone. She struggled to keep moving, to keep from falling to her knees on the sand and wailing the dirge of a newborn widow. Her heart threatening to break, she hesitated.

 _Come home, Olivia…_

But now Erron stood before her, screaming through her brain. "Dammit, woman! Don't let his sacrifice be in vain!" He quickly drew both of his guns and aimed them at her. "Don't let his sacrifice be in vain!" he shrieked, and his fingers casually pulled back the hammers and threatened to fire them at her.

 _Come home, Olivia_ …

She started running from him, further on down the vision. Her daughter was so far ahead of her, and there was a terrible darkness racing after her, breathing on her neck with icy breath. If she slowed, it would catch her up in it too, and she would die a death that was somehow worse than death, forever alone in its darkness. "The universe demands a life for the life that was taken," she heard Fujin's voice say from somewhere far away.

 _Come home, Olivia_ …

She could feel ice building inside of her, a terrible chill inside her womb. In the distance, she saw her daughter. She was tall and proud, with Kuai Liang's face and light skin, and her eyes like glittering sapphires. Olivia smiled at her and began to lift her hand toward hers, but when she opened her mouth, blood tainted by Reiko's magik poured out.

 _Come home, Olivia_ …

Gods and spirits lined the beach now, dressed in pristine white. They watched her as she ran towards her daughter, but they made no effort to help or hinder her. "Hurry!" they cried, "faster, faster!" Anya raced, her feet burning on the hot sand wherever they touched. " _Faster_!" they cried as one, and she screamed and threw herself forward to tackle Olivia once and for all. A great knife of pain ripped across her heart as she clutched the girl by the wrist, but she refused to let go.

 _Come home, Olivia…_

And now the beach was gone and she flew across the great sea, carrying her daughter, higher and higher, the greens and blues rippling beneath, blurring behind her like a watercolor painting that had yet to dry, the darkness receding for now. She could smell her home, she could see it, just beyond that pinpoint of light in the sky that could've been the sun, the great Temple half buried in snow, and arms to hold her and keep her warm through the long winter. She sailed through the sun…

...and back to Z'Unkarah where Olivia had taken in a long, ragged gasp of air. "Olivia?" she cried, relieved and suspicious at the same time. Part of her worried she'd only imagined that labored breath pushing out the death.

"No," the Cryomancer moaned, coughing. "No, please."

"It's okay, Olivia," she soothed, cupping her cheeks. "You're going to be okay." She glanced down at her daughter's belly to look at the scythe wound. It was completely healed. At the sight of it, she closed her eyes in relief and then leaned over, kissing the girl's face in every possible spot. "Oh, God, thank you," she whispered. Behind her, she heard Erron let out an audible sigh of relief too.

"Anya!" the Hydromancer heard Tomas yell over the sound of the falling rain.

She looked up and now saw that the cyber-ninja was already sliding on his knees through the mud to his best friend. Worry and confusion were plastered across his face. He was followed into the intersection by Kailyn, Morgan, and Alex, who looked every bit as concerned as him.

"What happened?" he cried, his voice laced with an incredibly thick Czech accent. He curled his human arm beneath Kuai Liang's head and lifted him onto his lap. Frantically, he slicked back his friend's rain-soaked locks, and then he cocked his head and pressed his ear almost against his lips, listening for the sound of breathing.

"He gave his life to save Livy," she replied, suddenly very exhausted. She didn't think she'd ever felt so tired in all her life. "It was what he wanted. He's dead, Tomas." And when she heard herself speak those words so certainly, with such a heavy sense of finality, she finally found her tears.

But Tomas was not convinced his friend was gone. In spite of her testimony, he began to scan the Cryomancer's body with his cybernetic gauntlet, and gasped in surprise. "Anya, he's not dead!" he cried.

"What?" she yelped. "Erron-" She looked up at the gunslinger, and with her eyes, beckoned him to help Olivia. Immediately, he joined her side as Anya now crawled to Tomas and Kuai Liang.

"It is very faint, but he has a pulse," he told her as she gripped his armor-clad hand. "His vital signs are very weak."

"Maybe you let go of him just in time," Erron now drawled as he cradled the girl upright against his chest to help her breathe. Olivia was still struggling for air and not quite conscious, but she was very much alive.

"Maybe," Anya said as she pressed her fingers into his carotid artery. As Tomas had said, there was a faint, barely perceptible pulse there. "Kuai Liang?" she breathed in panic as she shook him, trying to wake him. "Kuai Liang?"

"His brain waves suggest he's in a coma, _můj sladký anděl_ ," the Enenra explained.

But she was not hearing it. Tears dripped across his cheeks. "Do you remember our first night together as husband and wife, Kuai Liang?" she whispered. "Do you remember when you wed me at the pool of Massilia with the Elder Gods and spirits all around us, and how we made Livy that night? Remember how gentle and beautiful that place was? We vowed never to leave each other." She paused, choking on her cracking voice. "Wake up, Kuai Liang. Please don't leave me. I can't live without you."

It hurt to even think of losing him, especially since she was the reason why he was in this state. _Why did you make me do this to you?_ she inwardly screamed at him, even though she now knew the answer better than she ever did before. At the thought, she let out a deep, shuddering sob.

She wanted to sleep now, to sleep and dream of peaceful things beside him in their warm bed in Arctika. Massilia weighed heavily on her mind. The Elder Gods themselves bonded them together for the rest of their lives, and even if she'd left him like she'd threatened so many times since the start of this nightmare, she could never truly divorce herself from him. Their hearts had been united as one. It had been stupid to threaten him at all. He belonged to her, and she to him, and not even his noble sacrifice to redeem himself to her and their daughter was going to change that.

She knelt, kissed the Cryomancer on the forehead, and held his cheeks in her hands. Her powers were spent; there was nothing left inside of her to give to her husband. But she hoped that just being there was enough to save him from the darkness. She stared at the him, doe-eyed with concern, then took his hand in hers and nuzzled his fingers with her cheek.

* * *

Burned and aching, Fujin squirmed to get free from the tonfas that had so efficiently pinned him to the muddy ground beneath him, and that was how Raiden found him when he approached his brother and stood above him knowingly.

"You let a mortal get the best of you again, didn't you?" the older of the two said as he sternly crossed his arms and stared into his eyes. To Fujin, who was much younger than his brother, Raiden always seemed to be looking down on him, judging him like a father more than a sibling. And the Wind God was _not_ in the mood for a lecture.

"I don't suppose you can save your attitude of smug superiority until _after_ you've helped me get free, can you?" he drily grimaced, the pain boring through either of his palms blinding, even by _his_ standards. Humiliation at his predicament dug deep grooves into his face.

"I suppose I can indulge you just this once," Raiden replied as he leaned over and gripped both handles simultaneously. "Brace yourself, Brother. This will undoubtedly feel unpleasant."

"I-"

But his thought was abruptly interrupted by the Thunder God suddenly yanking the tonfas from his hands. 'Unpleasant' wasn't a good enough word for it. The blades brushed against his bones, sawing through the nerves and sending wave after wave of flaring agony through his arms. The whole ordeal lasted less than a second, quicker than ripping off a Band-Aid, yet it was infinitely worse. Fujin howled for a long moment, even after he was free.

"Steady," Raiden told him as he grabbed the Wind God's flailing wrists. Wordlessly, electricity arched around his hands and danced its way into the twin holes pouring immortal ichor from the wounds. Almost immediately, the injuries healed. With a faint smile, the elder brother then gripped his hand and lifted him to his feet.

"Far be it of me to seem ungrateful," Fujin began as the elder brother started leading them towards the palace, "but what are you doing here?"

"Do you really have to ask?" the other raised his eyebrow. "I sensed my Earthrealm Champions' absence almost as soon as you all left. I, of course, was not particularly happy when I learned you all had traveled to Outworld without consulting me first. Especially when I discovered that Reiko intended to take our father's amulet."

"We didn't know that at first," he defensively replied. "Had we, I would've insisted on bringing our mission to your attention. We merely thought we were coming to Outworld to rescue the children he'd kidnapped."

"I could have offered my guidance and support," the other reprimanded. "And, as Earthrealm's chosen protector, I do not like the idea of my Champions traveling to Outworld without my knowledge. What if something had happened to them? There would have been no one to save them."

"I have been traveling with them this entire time, Raiden," he retorted, now tensing in irritation. The Thunder God just _knew_ what to say to drive him crazy. "If something had happened to them, _I_ would have been there to save them. And frankly, Brother, I don't appreciate the implication that I wasn't good enough to take care of them. I've taken care of them in Outworld before."

"You will forgive me, Fujin, if I point out that I have seen you bested not by one mortal in recent memory, but _two_ ," the other pointed out. "In neither instance were your opponents physically stronger than you. But both times, they tricked you and outsmarted you."

"Tanya did _not_ outsmart me," he snapped. "I was angry and she-"

Raiden didn't even try to hide the irritated sigh that escaped him. "Your anger is still a problem, I see. Will you _ever_ heed my counsel?"

"You don't understand! She threw Morgan off a cliff and nearly killed her."

"Brother, that is no excuse to lose your temper," he told him. "Do you not remember what you did to Numeira when Eidotheia sacrificed herself to stop Onaga?"

Fujin recoiled at that. It was like a slap in the face. In a blind rage, using all the powers of the wind at his disposal, he'd leveled the ancient Outworld city. Men, women, and children. All murdered by his hand in the blink of an eye. Of all the things he'd ever felt damned for, that was the one that truly took the cake. He'd never felt so lost, so _craven_ , in all of the eons he'd been alive. The memory still tortured him. Raiden knew as much, but still casually threw it in his face like they were discussing menu items.

"That is _not_ the same," he snapped.

"No, it is worse," he replied. "Eidotheia was merely our cousin, but the rage you felt over her death drove you temporarily insane. If Tanya had succeeded in killing Morgan, then I am confident Outworld would exist no more. Millions of lives rather than thousands swept away in an instant, including many of the Earthrealm Champions, murdered by a vengeful god for a crime they did not commit. It is something Lord Shinnok would gladly do."

Fujin glowered at his brother. "I am _nothing_ like him."

"No, you are right, Brother," he conceded. "Our father has long since learned to control _his_ anger."

His scathing remark stabbed the Wind God in the heart. He didn't like being compared to the fallen Elder God, his bastard of a father, but it hurt even worse to think that there was something his father had beat him at.

"You _cannot_ allow your emotions to control you, Fujin," Raiden continued. With the immense power of the wind at your disposal, blind rage is a luxury you cannot afford. You _must_ control your feelings. You know that people will die if you do not. And I fear that someday, _you_ will die because you let your foolish anger run unchecked."

"Me, Raiden?" he replied, his irritation prickling at his heart.

"Someday, I foresee your anger bringing about your own demise. And I do not wish to lose my brother. You are the one being in this universe I treasure the most."

Now Fujin scoffed. "Give me more credit than that," he said. "I've survived a _lot_. I even survived Onaga actively trying to kill me. _Twice_. It's pretty hard to kill a god."

"It is difficult, but not impossible," he countered.

"I know," he replied. "Onaga succeeded in killing you…"

Raiden glowered at him for a moment but said nothing before he put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Tanya bested you because it is easy to defeat people who are out of control. When you are in control of your emotions and faculties, I doubt there are many in the Realms who could defeat you in battle. You are mighty and fierce, truly a force of nature." He shook his head while Fujin's sadly sank. "But when you are out of control, it is like watching one of the children at the Shaolin Temple learn to fight for the first time."

Now he curled his finger under his shorter brother's chin and forced him to look into his sky blue eyes. "I know that our father, Lord Shinnok, fell from grace and was damned to the Netherrealm by the other Elder Gods when you were still quite young, so your knowledge of him is largely secondhand. Believe me when I tell you that he has such tremendous anger and darkness swirling inside of him that it puts yours on your worst day to shame. But it never goes unchecked. _Never_. Instead, he channels it productively into whatever task he undertakes. It makes him a terrible threat, a deadly force to be reckoned with. If only he could have used that power for good rather than evil, he could have truly changed the universe for the better."

"Do you think me evil, Raiden?" he wondered. It was a sincere question.

"No," he smiled. "You are nothing like our father. You are stronger than him." He flashed a reassuring wink at Fujin and then casually wrapped his arm around his shoulder as they continued walking through the rain. "I can only imagine the fear you must feel about Morgan's mortality. I have told you before, I do not envy the path you have put yourself on. You are doomed to say farewell to her someday, and on that day, I know your heart will break in two. But take comfort in the knowledge that for now, she still lives. Do not dwell on what _could_ have been. Dwell on what is and give thanks to the Elder Gods for making it so."

The Wind God thought about it and then shook his head in defeat. "You're right, Brother," he conceded. "It was foolish of me to try to make Tanya pay for something that never wound up happening. It was close, but I saved Morgan just in time." He sighed. "I just wanted to bring that snake to justice."

Raiden chuckled softly. "Justice is making Tanya pay for Morgan's pain. _Vengeance_ is making Tanya pay for yours." When his little brother couldn't find the words to reply, he squeezed him and said, "Do not trouble yourself with punishing her. Karma comes to everyone eventually, for good or for ill. Tanya has spread so much wickedness into the universe that it _will_ make her suffer for it, and then you will have the vengeance against her that you so desperately crave."

"Yes, but when?" he retorted in frustration. "I am notoriously impatient and seek immediate gratification."

"Then it shall be yours," the Thunder God replied. "While you were pinned to the ground, Kotal Kahn defeated Mileena and took her prisoner with the intention of executing her in front of all the Z'Unkaran people. The combined efforts of the Osh-tekk, Hydromancers, and Earthrealm Champions have successfully destroyed or driven out her army. In one fell swoop, Tanya has lost everything she was fighting for. Her mistress is condemned to die and Kotal Kahn is still her Emperor. That, I think, might be a more just punishment than her death."

"How do you figure?"

"If she died, she would have been called a martyr by her people," he explained. "But now, she has no people. She is alone."

Fujin shrugged. "That _does_ make me feel a little bit better," he said just as a teenage boy bolted past him with Hanzo and Kenshi on his heels.

"Takeda, I presume?" Raiden called to his Earthrealm Champions.

"He is convinced that Kuai Liang's daughter, Olivia, is in grave danger," the Grandmaster replied, stopping only long enough to fill in the two gods.

"His is correct," the Thunder God told his younger brother when they others ran off. "But I sense something else that troubles me. Sub-Zero's soul is fading. It feels as if the flame of a single candle is slowly burning out."

Fujin focused his own senses and quickly came to the same conclusion. The Grandmaster was dying. "We must find him," he declared. "The Dragon Medallion can only sustain him for so long."

Together, both brothers scurried after Hanzo and Kenshi, using their intuition to guide them through the maze of streets in the massive city. It didn't take them long. Not far from Kotal Kahn's palace, they came upon an intersection at the epicenter of a titanic battle, and there they saw both Sub-Zero and Olivia cradled in Tomas' and Erron's arms, respectively. Anya, Fujin noted, was holding her husband's hand while stroking his face, crying.

When he looked into her soul, he absorbed the memory of the events of the last several minutes. His heart sank when he saw his cousin's sacrifice. It had worked; it had saved Olivia, yes. But now, he was dying. Worse, his soul was, quite literally, part of Anya's now. If he died, she would undoubtedly go insane from his tortured half-life trapped in her brain.

Feeling his eyes upon her, she looked up and saw him. Her face contorted into an ugly mask and she reached for him to come. "Fujin," she sobbed. "Oh, God, Fujin, help him. Please."

"By the Elder Gods, Anya, what have you done?" His tone was not unfriendly, merely sad. "I warned you this power was dangerous…"

He and Raiden knelt beside Kuai Liang's motionless body, prompting Tomas to say, "I don't know what to do for him." The cyber-ninja's voice cracked. "His vital signs are getting weaker. I don't think it'll be long now…"

Fujin ordinarily couldn't stand the man. But in that moment, he glanced at him and noted the anguish written all over his face. Tomas and Kuai Liang were more than just friends, they were brothers. They had grown up together and shielded each other from the darkness of the Lin Kuei of old. They made each other laugh through the abuse and the misery, and they protected each other from the bullies in the Clan. When the Enenra had been turned into a heartless cyborg by the Lin Kuei, it had been the Cryomancer who'd put his own safety on the line to track him down and find a way to reverse the automation process. And when Raiden's self-immolation killed Kuai Liang, it had been the cyber-ninja who guarded his Dragon Medallion and refused to leave his side for hours until the Wind God restored him. The men loved each other so dearly that they'd even named their sons after each other. To Tomas, Fujin realized, losing Kuai Liang would be losing a piece of himself.

The Wind God's heart, of its own volition, immediately went out to him, and he rested his hand on the Enenra's shoulder to comfort him. "We will do what we can, Tomas," he reassured him. "His heart has always been strong."

The cyber-ninja swallowed hard and nodded, his head hanging down in defeat, but he said nothing while Kailyn knelt behind him and began to rub his shoulders to comfort him. Raiden, meanwhile, ran his outstretched hands inches above Kuai Liang's body, quietly mumbling ancient incantations that Fujin knew to be prayers to the Elder Gods to grant him greater powers. Then his hands crackled to life with electrical arcs, and at his mental command, tiny bolts of lightning zapped the Cryomancer's heart. Immediately, his physical injuries began to knit together.

"His soul is getting stronger," the Wind God announced as he saw it vibrate more brightly inside his cousin's body.

"How are his vital signs?" Anya whispered to Tomas.

"They're improving," he reported as he scanned his friend once again.

"His body is not so damaged that he should die from his injuries," Raiden told them. "And I have healed what damage there was. But when someone takes a person's soul, their body implodes and dies from within."

"A person's soul is what takes a glorified Ziploc baggie full of primordial sludge and turns it into a living, breathing, functioning machine," Fujin explained to them. "Think of it like a battery. Without it, there is nothing to keep the Ziploc baggie from breaking and spilling the sludge contained within back to the earth."

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," Anya mumbled softly, her red-rimmed eyes lost and faraway.

Fujin nodded. "Yes," he agreed. "Thankfully, Anya, you did not take _all_ of his soul. You let him go before you killed him completely."

"As my brother has said," Raiden began, "Sub-Zero's will is immensely strong. Additionally, the Blue Dragon within his Dragon Medallion is holding onto him to keep him alive. But there is nothing more we can do for him. It is now up to his soul whether or not he lives. Only time will tell."

"So he could be in a coma like this for years?" Tomas now demanded to know.

"Perhaps, but it is unlikely," the Thunder God replied. "The Blue Dragon is propping him up, so to speak, but even still she is unable to carry on like this indefinitely. If she falters, he will die. Let us pray to the Elder Gods that he recovers before that happens."

* * *

 **Lightrunner, maybe he did, maybe he didn't! ;)**

 **Darkis Shadow, did the feels get you this time? LOL "It can't end like this!" That's _exactly_ what I said after watching _Avengers: Infinity War_. **

**Esha Napoleon, thanks!**

 **MKDemigodZ-Warrior, I hope so too! LOL**

 **Slytherin Studios, I'm going to try!**

 **Westcoast Witchdoctor, thanks, Doc. I want them to be a happy family together again too. Maybe one of these days, I'll let that happen ;)**

 **Obelisk of Light, it's always a good day for me as a writer when my story moves someone to tears. But you know me, I've got to make my characters (and by extension, my readers) suffer for a spell so that when that ending comes, it's much more gratifying.**

 **ROCuevas, hopefully!**

 **PinkRedRose2, thanks! I'm glad you appreciate me punching you in the proverbial gut LOL I _do_ love keeping my readers on their toes. You know, for me personally, when I think of a strong female character, I always think back to Ripley from the _Alien_ movies, particularly in _Aliens_. She was strong because she was a _real_ woman. She didn't fight because she was super-strong and just got off on fighting. She fought because she had to, and she wasn't perfect at it. But she was also depicted like a mother protecting her young, which in my mind, is the time when a female is _most_ dangerous. And similarly, her nemesis was _also_ a mother protecting _her_ young. So when I write female characters, be it for fan-fiction or my regular stories, I try to keep Ripley in mind. What would a real woman behave like? What would a real woman be motivated by? So that's kind of my compass for avoiding the curse of the Mary Sue. I'd like to think it's a good compass. **


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